A Daily Occurrence

Delivering high-quality care is of utmost importance to patients, providers, and health care organizations. Yet, highly reliable, clinically excellent care continues to be an ongoing, industry-wide challenge.

Unfortunately, in health care, preventable harm is a daily occurrence; across the country, thousands die annually from these adverse events.1 These incidents go largely unreported by mainstream media because of the overwhelming number of events and the lack of transparency surrounding poor quality. Health care is not yet a high-reliability industry.

21st Century Complexities

High-quality care is safe, equitable, efficient, effective, timely, and patient-centered.2 All of these elements are essential to providing the best possible care but, given the complexity of health care in the 21st century, remain difficult to attain.

Our current measurement phenomena have reinforced that working on mandated measures is what quality is all about. However, these measures are only a small piece of quality. Even with mergers and ever-growing health care systems, care is still largely nonintegrated with highly variable, customized care. We struggle to deliver the recommended care 50 percent of the time. Processes are not standardized or are completely absent.3 This leads to suboptimal performance, harm, and the preponderance of waste, which some suggest is as high as 30 percent of all health care expenditures.4

There has been minimal investment in increasing the capacity and capability of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required to deliver high-quality care. Lack of investment has further hindered the impact of the quality and safety movement, which has had little overall influence on the delivery of high-quality care.5

A Culture of Excellence

We must accept that even with the quality movement of the past 20 years, we have not invested strategically in health care quality and safety. We have a responsibility to create a culture of excellence to deliver high-quality care.

Addressing and embracing health care quality leads to improved outcomes, decreased costs, and greater patient, physician, and staff satisfaction. An investment in quality will result in:

  • A trusting relationship with the population that you serve, staff, and physicians, effectively addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion.
  • An engaged team of physicians and staff working together to deliver high-quality care, which elevates morale and decreases burnout and staff turnover.
  • A significant return on investment, with lowered costs and increased revenue.

A shared goal of continually striving for excellence can bring out the best in everyone – from the Board and organizational leadership to the front-line teams and most importantly, our patients.

About Dr. Erin DuPree

Dr. Erin DuPree is a nationally recognized leader in health care improvement, quality, and patient safety.

As the former Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare, the innovative affiliate of the nation’s leading health care accreditor, she collaborated with leading organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Massachusetts General Hospital, Kaiser Permanente, and others to tackle their toughest quality issues and transform the industry to a high- reliability industry using a rigorous, data-driven, systematic methodology.

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Reach Out

For more information about services specifically designed to advance a culture of excellence in your organization and empower teams to deliver the best possible outcomes at the lowest cost to every patient, every time, contact Dr. Erin DuPree.

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References

  1. Institute of Medicine. To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. The National Academies Press; 2000. doi:10.17226/9728
  2. Institute of Medicine. Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century. The National Academies Press; 2001. doi:10.17226/10027
  3. McGlynn EA, Asch SM, Adams J, et al. The Quality of Health Care Delivered to Adults in the United States. N Engl J Med. 2003;348(26):2635-2645. doi:10.1056/NEJMsa022615
  4. Shrank WH, Rogstad TL, Parekh N. Waste in the US Health Care System: Estimated Costs and Potential for Savings. JAMA. 2019;322(15):1501-1509. doi:10.1001/jama.2019.13978
  5. McGlynn EA. Improving the Quality of U.S. Health Care — What Will It Take? N Engl J Med. 2020;383(9):801-803. doi:10.1056/NEJMp2022644