|
E-mail this page to a friend!
Elder Care News & Information
Hospice Organization to Launch National Quality
Initiative to Improve Care
Goal to improve
hospice and palliative care delivery and outcomes
July 3, 2006 - This September, the National Hospice
and Palliative Care Organization will launch a national, quality
initiative designed to help hospice providers build organizational
excellence and improve hospice and palliative care delivery and
outcomes. The Quality Partners program will be unveiled at NHPCOs
annual Management and Leadership Conference in New York City, September
11 13, 2006.
| |
Related Stories |
|
| |
Hospice Community Applauds AMA Support of Advance
Directives
AMA builds on lessons from Terri Schiavo for
end-of-life planning
June 15, 2006 - The American Medical Association
voted during its Annual Meeting this week to increase efforts to educate
patients about the importance of end-of-life planning. The action
received applause from the National Hospice and Palliative Care
Organization, which has more than 15,000 hospice and professional
members. Read
more...
Better Palliative Care Access, National Health Care
Plan Recommended by HHS Working Group
Citizens' Health Care Working Group wants core health care for all by
2012
June 3, 2006 A basic national health program was
the key recommendation in a report released yesterday by the Citizens'
Health Care Working Group, which was created by the 2003 Medicare
Modernization Act. That is earthshaking news but, as most
recommendations by government working groups, it will probably not
create many waves. Senior citizens, already covered by a national health
plan, will be more interested in a recommendation to restructure the way
palliative care, hospice care and other end-of-life services are
financed and provided, so people in need have increased access to these
services.
Read
more...
Read more
ElderCare News |
|
Two years in the making, the Quality Partners
initiative encompasses ten key components of quality that will offer
providers a clear framework throughout the hospice organization
providing the hospice with the opportunity for a 360 degree surveillance
of the entire operation, both clinical and non-clinical areas.
The overall goal of Quality Partners is to help
hospice providers measurably show organizational excellence and
demonstrate improvement efforts across all areas of hospice operations,
said Judi Lund Person, vice president, division of quality and access at
NHPCO. All sectors of the healthcare industry are focusing on quality
issues and our new initiative will provide tools and resources that
ultimately will result in better care at the bedside of patients and
families.
NHPCO board member Dr. Diane Meier, director of the
Center to Advance Palliative Care at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in
New York City, in her address at NHPCOs Clinical Team Conference in
April, acknowledged the challenge of defining quality, beyond the most
basic level of I know it when I see it.
If patients and families are to rely upon
consistent, reliable high-quality care from their hospice and palliative
care providers, there has to be a way to clearly define quality, assess
it, measure it, compare it and improve it, she explained. Providers need
a way to quantify quality. That requires measures that are simple,
inexpensive, easy to use, and connected to actual quality of care not
just paper exercises to satisfy external regulators.
Quality can be understood as desired health
outcomes, as defined by the recipients of health care, according to
Larry Beresford a freelance writer for NHPCO.
"Obviously, we know quality when we see it, even if
we dont always agree on its hallmarks. Hospice professionals receive
verbal expressions of gratitude while standing at the grocery checkout
line and thank-you letters from bereaved families to indicate that they
provided a valued service. But is that enough? Most quality experts say
no because it does not document actual outcomes of service or offer a
basis for comparison between providers," writes Beresford..
The thing thats missing in this rule-of-thumb view
of quality is consistency providing the same high level of care to
every patient and family, says NHPCO president Donald Schumacher.
Quality is a buzz word in health care today but how do people mean
it? Not just clinical care, but in terms of all aspects such as the
quality of your business ethics, compliance with laws and regulations,
and how you treat your own staff and volunteers, he says.
Some hospice people dont yet understand that
payment eventually will be attached to quality measurement. That will be
a tremendous motivator, beyond the desire to satisfy yourself and prove
to yourself that your contributions to the lives of patients and
families are the best they can be and continually getting better,
Schumacher explains.
The real excitement of a commitment to quality is
in your relationship with your patients and families and your community.
Demonstrating your commitment to quality will also go a long way toward
lifting employee morale and job satisfaction.
The Quality Partners campaign is designed to assist
hospice providers in preparing for the Quality Assessment/Performance
Improvement (QAPI) process outlined in the proposed Medicare Hospice
Conditions of Participation, expected to be final in 2008.
Clinical Excellence Collaborative
As part of the new Quality Partners initiative,
NHPCO has created the Quality Partners Clinical Excellence
Collaborative. This is a unique, nine-month program based on the
Institute for Health Care Improvement (IHI) model for improvement.
The Collaborative will offer participating teams of
three to six people with training, resources, and support to make
improvements in clinical excellence. The Collaborative has been
designed to help providers integrate an ongoing quality improvement
process into their business plans in such a way that measurable,
improved outcomes for patients and families will result.
The first training session for the inaugural
Collaborative will take place as a pre-conference event on September 10
in New York. Registration for this offering will be limited to the first
20 teams. Informational conference calls for NHPCO members, to help
explain the Collaborative, have been scheduled for July 12, 1:30 to
2:30pm and July 13, 4:00 to 5:00pm (EDT). NHPCO members wishing to
participate in one of these calls should contact Lin Noyes Simon at
lsimon@nhpco.org.
Over the course of the next two months, NHPCO will
work to familiarize its members with the initiative as well as explain
its key concepts and put them in a helpful context for hospice and
palliative care providers and professionals.
For a look at the ten components and additional
information on the QP Collaborative, visit
www.nhpco.org/quality.
|
Nursing Home Abuse, Medical Malpractice? Contact a lawyer.
click here
|
|
|
Click to More Senior News on the
Front Page
Copyright: SeniorJournal.com |
