Quality and Safety

A New York state hospital association has put out a report card grading the quality of hospital graders. Five of the 10 report cards that were evaluated were given low marks.

A larger number of hospitals are showing improvements in their quality of care said the Joint Commission in its annual report on quality and safety of hospitals.

While the ultimate goal of zero patient harm in hospitals has been largely elusive, there could be hope for progress by adapting lessons from high-risk industries.

As hospitals work to figure out how to reduce unplanned 30-day readmissions, a new analysis examines what some hospitals are doing.

The results of the National Committee for Quality Assurance's annual report on healthcare quality show some improvements but also marked problems.

It is easy to point fingers at the pharmaceutical companies, but to infuse ethics into drug pricing, drug makers, physicians, patients and the entire healthcare system must all participate.

It is so striking that hospitals are keen to accept and publicize the results of the fairly meaningless U.S. News and World Report hospital rankings and yet complain bitterly when the Leapfrog Group posts scores based on data about preventable medical errors and injuries.

One of the most promising trends in healthcare improvement is an interprofessional education program managed by the American College of Preventive Medicine that introduces Integrative Medicine into conventional medical settings.

Hospital selection can dramatically affect patient outcomes says a new Healthgrades report examining hospital quality outcomes.

Making healthcare quality reporting more patient-centered should be a natural part of making healthcare itself more patient-centered, say two authors of a recent New England Journal of Medicine article.