Join the Commonwealth Fund next Friday, May 6 at 1 p.m. ET for a free webinar on community-based approaches to reducing hospital readmissions. Presenters include Eric Coleman, MD, MPH, of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, who will discuss how hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, community providers, and others can provide continuous, coordinated care. Garry MacKenzie, MD of McKay-Dee Hospital Center in Ogden, Utah, will provide real-world examples of how the hospital has partnered with community providers to keep tabs on patients after discharge and keep them from being readmitted. Janice Fitzgerald, RN, of Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts will discuss Baystate's creation of care teams to oversee smooth and safe care transitions. Commonwealth Fund Vice President of Quality Improvement and Efficiency Anne-Marie Audet, MD, MSc will moderate. Click here to register for this free event.

In the new era of health care reform, hospitals are being rewarded for demonstrating value through various care delivery models such as medical homes, accountable care organizations, and bundled payments. The new Health Forum/AHA Leadership Summit Learning Series on Implementing Delivery System Transformation is designed to help hospital leaders understand how new care delivery and payment models lead to delivery system transformation. The series includes four one-hour web seminars with nationally recognized experts, a self-assessment on your organization’s progress toward care integration and coordination, registration to the Health Forum/AHA Leadership Summit, including a pre-Summit workshop, and more. To register for the Health Forum/AHA Leadership Summit Learning Series, please visit http://www.hpoe.org/ or contact Natasha Goburdhun, HRET Vice President of Systems Innovation, at ngoburdhun@aha.org or (312) 422-2613.

Hospital leaders work hard every day to provide their patients with high quality care that is free of injury and harm. While most hospital deaths are not due to failures in care delivery, many deaths are preventable. Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence (HPOE) has released the Health Care Leaders Action Guide: Hospital Strategies for Reducing Preventable Mortality, the latest in its series of guides and toolkits designed to assist hospital leaders in improving quality and performance. This guide supports the American Hospital Association’s strategic performance commitment on eliminating preventable mortality that is included in the 2011-13 AHA Strategic Plan. It outlines eight steps hospital and health system leaders should consider when thinking about ways to reduce preventable mortality. Click here to download a copy of this latest HPOE guide.

In the current era of health reform implementation, there can be a temptation to wait for a “silver bullet” that will quickly fix the multiple systems issues at the heart of challenges in balancing health care cost and quality. While there are no silver bullets, population health is a promising, systems-based approach to improving health on a wide scale, writes Valerie Pracilio, MPH, former Patient Safety Leadership Fellow and project manager for quality improvement at the Jefferson School of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University, in a recent H&HN Daily article, “A New Kind of Reform: Population Health.” Pracilio writes, “Population health reveals patterns and connections within and among multiple systems… These patterns and connections inform strategies by accounting for the characteristics of the population—including common health issues and the environment in which they live—while addressing needs.” Click here to access the complete article. Visit http://www.hpoe.org/ for more information on the Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship.

In this free HSR article from Paul J. Sharek, Gareth Parry, et al. the focus is on an assessment of the performance characteristics of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Global Trigger Tool (GTT) and to determine its reliability for tracking local and national adverse event rates. The study concluded that the high specificity, moderate sensitivity, and favorable interrater and intrarater reliability of the GTT make it an appropriate for tracking local and national adverse event rates. The strong performance of hospital-based reviewers supports their use in future studies. To read the full article click here.

The new HRET report Improving Health Equity through Data Collection AND Use: A Guide for Hospital Leaders, uses exploratory interviews with three hospitals and a review of the literature to identify key strategies hospitals have adopted to streamline the data collection process. Some of the key strategies include engaging senior leadership, defining goals for data collection, and combining disparities data collection with existing reporting requirements. An accompanying review of the literature highlighted several approaches for using the patient data collected by hospitals, such as using an equity scorecard to report organizational performance, informing and customizing language translation services provided, and reviewing performance indicators such as length of stay, admissions, and avoidable readmissions among others. To meet the needs of their diverse populations, hospitals and health systems need to bridge the gap between collecting meaningful patient data and reviewing the data to identify inequities in health care provision and utilization, and to implement simple yet effective interventions to improve care for patients. Click here to download the guide. Click here to view the video on H&HN Daily.

HRET is currently seeking a Research Specialist to provide assistance and programmatic support for HRET projects and plan and execute communication and research development activities. The incumbent will work with internal and external partners and with HRET research staff on logistical, administrative, and communication functions on multiple projects. HRET is also seeking a Director of Programs and Partnership Development, who will provide innovative and substantial support in furthering the AHA National Equity of Care strategy. This position will be responsible for building strong relationships with internal and external partners to support the development, implementation, and evaluation of the major priorities outlined in the AHA Equity of Care strategy. Click here for more information about career opportunities at HRET.

Drug shortages are having a significant effect on patient safety and hospital bottom lines. A recent HPOE webinar explored the national and international drug shortage crisis and introduced a new tool to help hospitals maintain and improve quality standards. A panel of experts discussed why an unprecedented level of drug shortages is occurring, the ramifications of shortages within hospitals, how clinicians and organizations are reacting, and what is being done to help address the situation—including the introduction of new federal legislation. The 2011 ISMP Medication Safety Self Assessment®, soon to be launched by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) in collaboration with HRET and AHA, is designed to help hospitals and health systems review and improve their safety practices and measure their progress in medication safety, including dealing with issues such as drug shortages. Click here to access the free archived webinar or contact hpoe@aha.org with questions.