Wednesday 17 December 2014

5000 safety fellows initiative

"Together with NHS England, we are working to develop an ambitious initiative that will connect and support people with safety and wider quality improvement expertise across the UK.
The initiative will help share effective improvement ideas throughout the health care system
We are working with organisations connected to those at the forefront of safety and quality improvement to launch the initiative in early 2015."

5000 safety fellows initiative
The Health Foundation
December 2014

Find out more here

Capitation: a potential new payment model to enable integrated care

"Capitated payment can offer significant benefits to patients but there are some risks. For the approach to deliver its full potential benefits to patients and to the health system as a whole, commissioners and providers need to agree on mechanisms for mitigating the risks."

Capitation: a potential new payment model to enable integrated care: A supporting document of ‘2015/16 National Tariff Payment System: A consultation notice’

Monitor, NHS England
November 2014

Read more here.

Innovation teams and labs: a practice guide

"The guide is primarily aimed at governments, but the methods, lessons and tips are also applicable to a wider audience of businesses, NGOs, and others interested in developing a structured, disciplined and impactful innovation capability. In this guide we outline the considerations and choices to be made, with a collation of resources to inspire, adopt, and adapt."

Innovation teams and labs: a practice guide
R Puttick
Nesta
December 2014

Read more here.

Leadership vacancies in the NHS

"Board-level vacancies have a negative impact on an organisation. They affect staff morale and engagement, cause strategic instability and waste human and financial resources."

Leadership vacancies in the NHS: What can be done about them?
A Janjua
The King's Fund
December 2014

Read more here.

Mergers in the NHS

"We are not convinced that the evidence base is strong enough on the role of competition relative to other drivers of quality. We think that it is right that there is some external scrutiny of merger decisions and accept that competition should be part of that process. However, a broader test which explicitly considers a range of factors (including competition) and makes specific reference to the views of commissioners as well as the sector regulator might be an improvement on the current process."

Mergers in the NHS: Lessons from the decision to block the proposed merger of hospitals in Bournemouth and Poole
E Spencelayh, J Dixon
The Health Foundation
December 2014

Read more here.

Comparing the implementation of team approaches for improving diabetes care in community health centers

"Patient panel management and community-based care management may be viable strategies for community health centers to improve the quality of diabetes care for vulnerable patient populations. The objective of our study was to clarify implementation processes and experiences of integrating office-based medical assistant (MA) panel management and community health worker (CHW) community-based management into routine care for diabetic patients."

Comparing the implementation of team approaches for improving diabetes care in community health centers
PJ Van der Wees, MW Friedberg, EA Guzman, JZ Ayanian, HP Rodriguez
BMC Health Services Research 2014, 14:608  doi:10.1186/s12913-014-0608-z

Read more here

Monday 15 December 2014

Impact of introducing an electronic physiological surveillance system on hospital mortality

"The use of technology specifically designed to improve the accuracy, reliability and availability of patients’ vital signs and early warning scores, and thereby the recognition of and response to patient deterioration, is associated with reduced mortality in this study."

Impact of introducing an electronic physiological surveillance system on hospital mortality
PE Schmidt et al.
BMJ Quality & Safety 2015;24:10-20 doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2014-003073

Read more here.

Finding patients before they crash: the next major opportunity to improve patient safety

"We believe that the coming together of four major trends or innovations promises substantial improvements to patient outcomes by preventing this perennial problem of delayed recognition and management of deteriorating patients on general hospital wards."

Finding patients before they crash: the next major opportunity to improve patient safety
DW Bates, E Zimlichman
BMJ Quality and Safety 2015;24:1-3 doi:10.1136/bmjqs-2014-003499

Read more here.

Monday 8 December 2014

Accident and emergency survey 2014

"Read the results of our latest survey which asked people about their experiences of accident and emergency (A&E) departments in 2014."

Accident and emergency survey 2014
Care Quality Commission

Read more here.

Impact of a competency based curriculum on quality improvement among internal medicine residents

"Teaching quality improvement (QI) principles during residency is an important component of promoting patient safety and improving quality of care. The literature on QI curricula for internal medicine residents is limited. We sought to evaluate the impact of a competency based curriculum on QI among internal medicine residents."

Impact of a competency based curriculum on quality improvement among internal medicine residents
MC Fok, RY Wong
BMC Medical Education 2014, 14:252  doi:10.1186/s12909-014-0252-7

Read more here.

Implementing a pilot leadership course for internal medicine residents

"Effective clinical leadership is associated with better patient care. We implemented and evaluated a pilot clinical leadership course for second year internal medicine residents at a large United States Academic Medical Center that is part of a multi-hospital health system"

Implementing a pilot leadership course for internal medicine residents: design considerations, participant impressions, and lessons learned
DM Blumenthal, K Bernard, TN Fraser, J Bohnen, J Zeidman, VE Stone
BMC Medical Education 2014, 14:257  doi:10.1186/s12909-014-0257-2

Read more here.

Health literacy: health professionals’ understandings and their perceptions of barriers

"This study suggests that health professionals have a limited understanding of health literacy and of the consequences of low health literacy for their Indigenous patients."

Health literacy: health professionals’ understandings and their perceptions of barriers that Indigenous patients encounter
M Lambert, J Luke, B Downey, S Crengle, M Kelaher, S Reid, J Smylie
BMC Health Services Research 2014, 14:614  doi:10.1186/s12913-014-0614-1

Read more here.

A new oxygen prescription produces real improvements in therapeutic oxygen use

"To help improve oxygen use within the Trust the quality improvement project (QIP) team asked the following: what are the reasons for poor oxygen use within the Trust? New interventions were developed around this question."

A new oxygen prescription produces real improvements in therapeutic oxygen use
J Rudge, S Odedra, D Harrison
BMJ Quality Improvement Reports 2014;3: doi:10.1136/bmjquality.u204031.w1815

Read more here.

Sheffield's Heart Failure MDT (Outreach service into non-cardiology wards)

"Delivering a cardiac outreach service requires perseverance and consistent hard work, made worthwhile by demonstrable improvements in patients outcomes."

Sheffield's Heart Failure MDT (Outreach service into non-cardiology wards)
Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
NICE Local Practice Collection
November 2014

Read more here.

Friday 5 December 2014

Managing quality in community health care services

"This paper reports on the findings from a small primary research study exploring how community health services providers define, measure, manage and improve the quality of care."

Managing quality in community health care services
C Foot, L Sonola, L Bennett, B Fitzsimons, V Raleigh, S Gregory
The King's Fund
December 2014

Read more here.

Safer Clinical Systems: evaluation findings

"Safer Clinical Systems is an approach for improving safe and reliable health care. It is based on principles adapted from high-reliability organisations, established risk management techniques from hazardous industries, and quality improvement methods."

Safer Clinical Systems: evaluation findings
M Dixon-Woods et al.
The Health Foundation
December 2014

Read more here.

Reimagining Quality Measurement

"quality measurement should be integrated with care delivery rather than existing as a parallel, separate enterprise; it should acknowledge and address the challenges that confront doctors every day — common and uncommon diseases, patients with multiple coexisting illnesses, and efficient management of symptoms even when diagnosis is uncertain; and it should reflect individual patients' preferences and goals for treatment and health outcomes and enable ongoing development of evidence on treatment heterogeneity"

Reimagining Quality Measurement
EA McGlynn, EC Schneider, EA Kerr
New England Journal of Medicine 2014; 371:2150-2153

Read more here.

Getting More Performance from Performance Measurement

"The science and practice of performance measurement have advanced substantially in the past decade, and increased transparency regarding results means that we know more quickly what works and what doesn't."

Getting More Performance from Performance Measurement
CK Cassel et al.
New England Journal of Med 2014; 371:2145-2147

Read more here

Costing statement - diagnosis and management of community and hospital acquired pneumonia in adults

"Savings may be achieved because of more appropriate use of antibiotics, reduced repeat appointments in primary care and reduced length of stay in secondary care."

Costing statement: Pneumonia – diagnosis and management of community- and hospital acquired pneumonia in adults
Implementing the NICE guideline on pneumonia (CG191)
NICE
December 2014

Read more here.

Costing statement: Intrapartum care: care of healthy women and their babies during childbirth

"Implementing the recommendations in the guideline is expected to lead to more women giving birth in settings other than obstetric units than is currently the case. CCGs and hospital trusts should work together to consider the impact this would have on planning service provision."

Costing statement: Intrapartum care: care of healthy women and their babies during childbirth 
Implementing the NICE guideline on intrapartum care (CG190)
NICE
December 2014

Read more here.

Safe staffing for nursing in adult inpatient wards in acute hospitals

"The guideline identifies organisational and managerial factors that are required to support safe staffing for nursing, and makes recommendations for monitoring and taking action if there are not enough nursing staff available to meet the nursing needs of patients on the ward.Safe staffing for nursing in adult inpatient wards in acute hospitals"

Safe staffing for nursing in adult inpatient wards in acute hospitals
NICE Guidelines [SG1]
July 2014

Read more here.

Monday 1 December 2014

Patient safety risks associated with telecare

"There is a need to better identify and describe patient safety risks related to telecare services to improve understandings of how to avoid and minimize potential harm to patients. This process can be aided by reframing known telecare implementation challenges and user experiences of telecare with the help of a human factors systems approach to patient safety."

Patient safety risks associated with telecare: a systematic review and narrative synthesis of the literature
V Guise, J Anderson, S Wiig
BMC Health Services Research 2014, 14:588  doi:10.1186/s12913-014-0588-z

Read more here.

Room for improvement: noise on a maternity ward

"Noise and disruptions are a significant problem during postpartum hospital stay. Healthcare institutions are responsible for patient-centered care; a quiet time intervention promises to contribute to a safe, healing environment in hospitals."

Room for improvement: noise on a maternity ward
S Adatia, S Law, J Haggerty
BMC Health Services Research 2014, 14:604  doi:10.1186/s12913-014-0604-3

Read more here.

Meeting patients’ health information needs in breast cancer center hospitals

"We found differences in proportions of patients with unmet information needs between hospitals and that hospitals’ structure and process-related attributes of the hospitals were associated with these differences to some extent. Hospitals may contribute to reducing the patients’ information needs by means that are not necessarily resource-intensive."

Meeting patients’ health information needs in breast cancer center hospitals – a multilevel analysis

C Kowalski, SD Lee, L Ansmann, S Wesselmann, H Pfaff
BMC Health Services Research 2014, 14:601  doi:10.1186/s12913-014-0601-6

Read more here.

Improving coordination through information continuity

"The framework offers value to policy makers and practitioners as a map that identifies the multi-level elements of an integrated system capable of driving better coordination."

Improving coordination through information continuity: a framework for translational research
K Gardner, M Banfield, I McRae, J Gillespie, L Yen
BMC Health Services Research 2014, 14:590  doi:10.1186/s12913-014-0590-5

Read more here.

Perinatal staff perceptions of safety and quality in their service

"In this study we set out to assess staff perceptions of safety and quality of a maternity service and to explore potential influences on service safety."

Perinatal staff perceptions of safety and quality in their service
SV Sinni, EM Wallace, WM Cross
BMC Health Services Research 2014, 14:591  doi:10.1186/s12913-014-0591-4

Read more here.