Minnesota Posts Quality Outcomes/Whole System Measures Online
April 29, 2010
Posted by chcablogadmin in : Community Benefit, Innovation, Quality, Technology
“It is a very effective use of Whole System Measures data. The text has a great “voice” that really communicates clearly the goals and processes underway. A transparency “poster-child” site. Congratulations!” — Robert B. Carroll, Administrator, Performance Reporting & Improvement, Children’s Memorial Hospital, Chicago
by Phillip M. Kibort, MD, MBA
Vice President Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer
Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota
Phil Kibort, M.D., M.B.A.
Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, while one of the physically largest children’s hospitals in North America is not yet nationally as well known for its excellence as some of your programs, probably due to the fact that we’re from Lake Wobegon. While many of your programs have very large research departments, academic departments, as well as very large endowments, Children’s of Minnesota realized years ago that for us to make any impact on the care of children in the United States we would have to lead or try to lead in clinical outcomes and in patient safety. Part of that journey was to make sure that we were always transparent about our quality with our families and all our stakeholders.
I have been privileged to work for two CEOs, Brock Nelson and now Alan Goldbloom, MD, who as leaders of Children’s have constantly pushed to make sure that quality and safety is at the forefront of the organization. It is manifested by being one of the key topics presented at all meetings, including the Board meetings, as well as the Board Chair leading the Board Quality Committee and having all new board members be on it. We have had an expectation of ourselves to be open with our outcomes data. We said one of the things we wanted to do, and have been doing for the past two years, is putting our outcomes data out on the web to be available for all to see. We took a lesson from Cincinnati Children’s to be committed to showing the good, the bad, and even the warts, but with the commitment that if our outcomes weren’t good, that we continually strive to get better.
Our goals for this site was to make sure that both our internal and external audiences would know where we stand in relation to national data bases. Whether it was PHIS, which always tends to be our first choice, or other databases such as the VON network or STS. We believe that patients would not trust us unless we were willing to tell them the full truth and that our staff would not be committed to getting better unless they knew where we stood. The public so far, has responded well to this site. I was pleased by some of the quotes I saw from our colleagues at the other children’s hospitals, that they felt that it was a powerful site.
We elected to pick the domains as described by the six areas of the IOM. Focus groups with our all divisions, our Family Advisory Board, the executive group and nursing staff told us how they wanted to see the data. We asked them to tell us what made sense, what was easy to understand and what language to use. For years we have been willing to even share this data with our peers locally as well as all the payers and other hospital leadership in our region.
For Children’s utilizing the whole system measures (WSM) program from CHCA and the PHIS data has always been a wonderful database to measure ourselves against. We realize that for us to gain the reputation, that many of you have, we have to perform as well if not better. My major recommendation to all of you is, go ahead put it out there, show your staff, show your community, lets show each other. It is the only way we will get better. We have an ethical imperative to measure ourselves against each other not as competitors, but as colleagues and friends who want to learn from each other, so in the end the children of this country get improved care.
Finally the thing I believe we are most proud of is that we are measuring within the most difficult domain “equity”. We have to start somewhere and even if our data is weak, we must begin recognizing how we deal with our children of diversity and our diverse populations. If we don’t measure it we will never get better at it. I would be happy to discuss any of this with you.
I want to thank our CEO, Alan Goldbloom, MD for his constant support in letting us do this.
Contact me:
Phil.Kibort@childrensmn.org
(651) 220-6165 St.Paul
(612) 813-6165 Mpls.
The Gap between Expanding Access and Ensuring Care for Children
April 29, 2010
Posted by chcablogadmin in : Financial Viability, Healthcare Reform, Manpower & Workforce
by Steve Allen, MD, CEO
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Steve Allen, M.D.
As President Barack Obama signed the landmark health care overhaul into law this week, it seemed appropriate that the person standing closest to him was an 11 year-old boy. When health care fails, children often pay the greatest price—whether it is babies born prematurely to mothers who cannot afford prenatal care; or toddlers who lack necessary immunizations; or grade schoolers who suffer in silence with asthma; or adolescents struggling to manage diabetes or psychiatric disorders without a guiding medical hand. For all of them, this new law will make a difference.
The Price of “Value”
April 18, 2010
Posted by chcablogadmin in : Cost Reduction, Quality
I read in Atul Gawande’s recent post in The New Yorker that the reform package emerged with a clear recognition that the U.S. system is one that pays for the quantity of care rather than the “value” of it. In fact, the very act of delivering better care for less is currently financially penalized. Make sure you read the reference to challenges of the asthma program at Children’s Hospital Boston.
It made me think about your relationship with CHCA and our shared vision to deliver value – not increased activity. Over the next several months, members of CHCA’s senior leadership team and I will be meeting with many of you in person to share the 2009 Value Summaries. This report is a snapshot of the benefits your hospital received from being an Owner of CHCA in 2009 and a discussion point to drive that value even higher in 2010.
Like the new Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Gawande refers to, your leveraged relationships through CHCA will help you do what the drug and device companies and the public and private insurers have failed to do so — deliver quality care at reasonable costs. That is our real value.
add a commentWe Can Do the Math. Now What?
April 18, 2010
Posted by chcablogadmin in : Healthcare Reform, Manpower & Workforce
There has been a lot of coverage in the news lately about physician shortages including an interesting piece in the The Wall Street Journal.
This issue is not new to you. CHCA has examined physician shortages from several angles, including the impact of adding advance practice nurses to your care model. We will continue to address this issue with your input going forward. Donna Hyland from Atlanta and Steve Allen from Columbus have both expressed their concerns and opinions about how to tackle the physician shortage in a post-health care reform era. Let’s hear from the rest of you.
You are all bracing for patient volumes to rise to an unprecedented number. As an exclusive alliance of non-competing children’s hospitals, you have been eager to share your innovative business practices with one another. Now as you compete for this very small pool of pediatric residents, how willing are you to share your recruitment strategies?
What data, knowledge and information do you need from us to help you create those strategies and practice models? Are you willing to collaborate or is the subject of recruiting and retaining the best physicians off limits?
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