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(AHRQ: Rockville, Maryland) -- According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) 2007 National Healthcare Quality Report and National Healthcare Disparities Report, quality improvement rates are lower than the 3.1 percent average annual improvement rate reported in 2006…
(IBM: Armonk, New York) -- Through the use of service oriented architecture (SOA), health care providers, clinics, and hospitals are set to improve productivity, increase quality, and reduce costs. Sponsored by IBM and a select group of business partners, the health care strategy is based on…
(GOAL/QPC: Salem, New Hampshire) -- GOAL/QPC CEO and founder Bob King will discuss “The Future of Quality, Transformation and Innovation in Healthcare” during WCBF’s seventh annual Lean Six Sigma and Process Improvement in Healthcare Summit, occurring in Las Vegas, April 1–4.
“Health care…
(Siemens Healthcare: Orlando, Florida) -- Siemens health care data-mining tool, Soarian Quality Measures, replaces time-consuming manual chart reviews with highly accurate and automated chart abstraction of quality measures, as defined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and The…
(EBRI: Wasington, D.C.) -- A relatively new health plan model that advocates hope will control rising health spending could fail if key consumer education initiatives prove ineffective, according to a study recently published by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute.The study,…
(NCQA: Washington, DC) -- The National Committee for Quality Assurance launched a new version of its Physician Practice Connections (PPC) program designed to assess how medical practices are functioning as patient-centered medical homes. The new Physician Practice Connections—Patient-Centered…
(ScripNet: Las Vegas) - To ease the availability of prescription medications to injured workers, ScripNet, a pharmacy benefits manager, is saving time and money with its innovative Call Ahead Program.“We launched the Call Ahead Program over a year ago to make it easier on the injured worker, to…
(Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: Rockville, MD) -- According to a new study funded by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, most doctors’ think that current systems to report and share information about errors are inadequate.…
(Lumetra: San Francisco) -- Investing in culturally-appropriate, community-based interventions substantially improved rates of A1C testing among Latinos with diabetes, according to a new study published in the February American Journal of Public Health. Proper diabetes care management is essential…
(World Bank: Astana, Kazakhstan) -- The World Bank’s board of executive directors recently approved a US$117.7 million loan for the Kazakhstan Health Sector Technology Transfer and Institutional Reform Project. The project will introduce international standards to the Ministry of Health and…
(AQHA: Washington, D.C.) -- The annual American Quality Health Association meeting will be held in San Francisco, California, Feb. 26–28, 2008. National health care leaders from quality improvement organizations, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and other public and private…
(WCBF: Las Vegas) -- WCBF will host the Seventh Annual Six Sigma and Process Improvement in Healthcare Summit in Las Vegas, April 1–4, 2008. The focus will be on lean, Six Sigma, and other process improvement methodologies within the health care system. The summit will feature nine presummit…
(U.S. Senate: Washington, D.C.) -- The cost of poor quality in health care accounts for from 30 to 60 cents of every health care dollar. Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) along with a bipartisan group of legislators have introduced a bill that would expedite the adoption of…
(USGBC: Washington, D.C.) -- The U.S. Green Building Council and the Green Guide for Health Care have agreed to help green the health care industry by fostering best practices and ensuring that the health care industry has the tools and resources to build green. Green hospital buildings are…
(Mercy Health System: Janesville, Wisconsin) -- Mercy Health System, a recipient of the 2007 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, is recognized for organizational excellence across its entire vertically integrated organization spanning three hospitals, 285 employed physicians and their…
(NQF: Washington, D.C.) -- National Quality Forum is formally soliciting candidate measures for review and evaluation for potential inclusion in its set of NQF-endorsed voluntary consensus standards for health care information technology (HIT). Any organization or individual may submit…
(CIGNA HealthCare: Bloomfield, Connecticut) -- In an effort to manage the high-volume data used in its health advocacy programs, CIGNA HealthCare is teaming up with Thomson Healthcare’s MedStat data services. By employing greater data management, the goal for CIGNA HealthCare is to engage…
(The Center for Business Intelligence: Woburn, Massachusetts) – CBI will host the conference with the theme, “Implement a Strategy for Continuous Quality Systems Improvement in Accordance with ICH Q10 Guidelines,” January 24–25, 2008, in Philadelphia.ICH Q10 describes one comprehensive approach…
(AHRQ: Rockville, Maryland) -- An array of toolkits designed to help doctors, nurses, hospital managers, patients, and others reduce medical errors was recently released by the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.The 17 toolkits, developed by AHRQ-funded…
(Cardinal Health: Dublin, Ohio) -- Cardinal Health, a global provider of products and services that improve the safety and productivity of health care, recently announced a new service to help hospitals combat methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections that are responsible…
(CBI: Woburn, Massachusetts) -- The Center for Business Intelligence will hold the Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) Process Improvement Summit for Bio/Pharmaceutical & Medical Devices on Jan. 24-25, 2008 in Philadelphia. This conference focuses on industry-specific tools and…
(Sciemetric Instruments: Ottawa, Canada) -- Sciemetric Instruments has announced the general availability of SigPOD Medical, a system to verify parts and processes in the manufacturing of medical devices.Regulatory initiatives such as the Food and Drug Administration’s Process Analytical…
In October, Medtronic Inc., makers of a wide range of medical devices, issued a voluntary suspension of its Sprint Fidelis defibrillation leads due to an increasing rate of lead fractures.Rob Clark, Medtronic senior director of public relations, says the decision was based on both a statistical…
(Pfizer: New York, and Sermo: Cambridge, Massachusetts) -- Pfizer Inc. and Sermo, the nation’s largest online physician community, recently announced a strategic collaboration designed to redefine the way physicians in the United States and the health care industry work together to improve…
(Juran: Southbury, Connecticut) -- A growing trend among hospitals is the use of lean techniques to improve patient safety measures, in turn improving the overall quality of care. Juran Healthcare’s patient safety model incorporates the Juran Trilogy (safety planning, safety compliance, and…