PQ Systems, Inc. | Quality Blog

President Barack Obama has picked Donald M. Berwick, MD to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. A champion for hospital quality improvement and safety in medical care, he founded the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in 1991 and has been challenging doctors since then to provide better services at lower cost. Heading this important agency is considered by some to be “the second most powerful [healthcare] position in Washington, next to the secretary of health and human services.” The agency has been without a head for four years.  (http://allgov.com/)

Will Berwick be able to change the focus of the programs he leads to one of quality improvement? His background as a dynamic innovator in the healthcare industry promises this—but will he be able to sustain the focus on quality in the highly bureaucratic agency?

Have you had experiences that reflect Berwick’s mark on healthcare through IHI? What thoughts do you have about his potential success in leading this giant agency?

Looking for funding for children’s health improvement projects? One of our Quality eLine readers has generously offered a suggestion for possible grant funding opportunities under the newest healthcare legislation, passed in April.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) offers information about grant funding through CHIPRA (Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act). CHIPRA Pediatric Healthcare Quality Measures Program Centers of Excellence (U18) anticipates making seven to nine awards that total $55 million over a 4-year period. The maximum annual award is $2 million. Awards are contingent upon the availability of funds and the submission of a sufficient number of meritorious applications. Because the proposed research will vary across applications, it is anticipated that awards will vary in size and duration.

Application deadline is June 30, with letters of intent to be submitted by June 1. For more information: http://www.ahrq.gov/chip/chipraact.htm#Grants.

I found this article in the May issue of Continuous Improvement, put together by IHI. What was most enlightening about the following article, by Bob Lloyd, is that your background may affect how you choose to evaluate data and thus how you respond to data.

I have been exposed to control charts for nearly 30 years and I see a use for most process data to be displayed in control chart form. We are all routinely exposed to data in binary form: the stock market went up compared to yesterday, the temperature is cooler today than on this date last year, our company had x% growth over last year, etc. The numbers are interesting, but control charts tell a story.

Helping Leaders “Blink” Correctly

In the first of two articles, IHI’s Bob Lloyd describes two of four core skills health care leaders need to use data appropriately in decision making: understanding the messiness of improving health care, and determining why you are measuring. Without these capacities, Dr. Lloyd argues, we run the risk of going off in the wrong direction in the “blink of an eye.”

Read the article in Healthcare Executive