If you have wondered about the quality of care at U.S. hospitals and how we might be able to make improvements when it comes to saving lives and saving money, here is your answer.
It was announced this week that Premier healthcare alliance’s QUEST initiative saved more than 8,000 lives and $577 million in costs in just one year.
QUEST is a collaborative effort started by Premier and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). Essentially the three-year project involves 157 hospitals in 31 states that volunteered to participate. The hospitals were challenged to overcome performance issues that lead to deaths, errors and excessive costs and were then measured and compared to their peers in certain related categories.
The impressive results announced today are obviously tied to the diligent, hard work on the part of each hospital and its staff, but they are also tied to pride and fear and that is a good thing! Hospital officials knew that their data would be made public and would be transparent as part of this competition. Failure was not an option.
QUEST is the type of program the government should want to roll out nationwide. Just think what would happen if all U.S. hospitals were actually required to participate? You would see a reduction in cost and an improvement in quality of care much faster than if changes are simply mandated from the top down.
I admit, when the federal government gets involved in certain initiatives you don’t always have a stellar outcome. But in this case, with its collaboration with Premier, the results speak for themselves. Washington, are you listening?