The Affordable Care Act required the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop a National Quality Strategy that would make care safe, effective, and affordable.
The U.S. population is growing in size. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about one-third of the nation's adults are obese, and many of them become patients at U.S. hospitals, in need of surgeries of varying kinds.
In August, the National Quality Forum (NQF) endorsed 41 new measures of pediatric care quality covering a wide range of child care, from prenatal care to blood pressure and physical development screening for youth ages 13 through 18.
In healthcare facilities across the United States, x-rays and CT scans are used widely and often. Because of them, patients rarely undergo risky exploratory surgery, and countless lives are undoubtedly saved because the correct diagnosis was made with the help of the picture...
In November 2010, The Joint Commission issued a Sentinel Event Alert requiring all hospitals to screen patients who do not present with a primary mental health diagnosis and are treated in general hospitals in medical-surgical units and the ED, in addition to those patients who...
I've been attending a lot of patient safety and quality conferences lately-‘tis the season. As conferences generally go, some are valuable and the networking is great; others are not overly helpful; and the opportunities for learning from others are slim to none.