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CPHQ Recertification Deadline Looms
If your recertification cycle ends December 31, 2007, you have just a few weeks to submit your recertification. Try the online recertification process. Recertification forms are located on the Healthcare Quality
Certification Board’s Web site. Don’t delay and risk losing your CPHQ certification!
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JHQ Team Members Assume Editors’ Posts
Two Journal for Healthcare Quality team members recently assumed new responsibilities for the journal’s Web Exclusives. Eileen Johnson, MSN CPHQ, will serve as media editor, and Michelle Horvath, MSN RN, as q&a coeditor. Johnson is a clinical systems analyst at Cogent Healthcare in Brentwood, TN. She has been a significant contributor of media reviews in JHQ’s Web Exclusives. Horvath is director of performance improvement at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. She will be teaming up with Deb Flores, the current q&a editor, to acquaint JHQ readers with innovators in the healthcare quality field.
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NAHQ Update
Strategic Planning: NAHQ is currently undertaking a strategic planning initiative and we need your help. Complete our short survey to help set goals and priorities to make NAHQ an even better resource and community of quality professionals.
NAHQ Logo Items: Show your healthcare quality pride with pens, shirts, lunchboxes, and yoga mats that feature our new NAHQ logo. Click here to see items.
Dates to Remember
- December 3, 2007–Letter of intent for fellowship applications due
- December 31, 2007–CPHQ recertification deadline
- January 11, 2008–HQF State Educational Grant applications due
- January 18, 2008–Ballot nominations due
In Other News...
AHRQ: Certain Mortality Rates Dipped from 1994 to 2004
A report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) finds that risk-adjusted mortality rates for heart attack, congestive heart failure, pneumonia, stroke, gastrointestinal hemorrhage, and hip fracture steadily declined between 1994 and 2004. Heart-attack-related deaths declined from 125 per 1,000 hospital admissions in 1994 to 82 deaths per 1,000 admissions a decade later.
With data from Trends in Hospital Risk-Adjusted Mortality for Select Diagnoses and Procedures, 1994–2004, AHRQ concluded that an estimated 136,000 hospital patients who would have died in 1994 survived their hospital stays in 2004.
“[This report] shows the importance of synergy between science, technology, and quality systems,” said Donald Goldmann, MD, senior vice president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. “The whole nature of care has evolved from a technology mess to better organized care,” he says. “Quality professionals can use [research like that presented in AHRQ’s report] to keep improving patient care and further refining protocol.”
Mortality rates of several surgical procedures were also examined. Abdominal aortic aneurysm repair saw the greatest reduction in deaths, dropping from 103 deaths in 1994 to 74 deaths in 2004. Deaths during coronary artery bypass graft procedures dropped from 48 to 28, and deaths during craniotomy procedures fell from 83 to 68.
“When IHI looks at this terrain, we recognize that commitment to better patient care and dedication to knowledge-based practice is effective in improving outcomes,” Goldmann says. “This research shows that the marriage of evidence-based research, great skill, and improved quality measures really helps save lives.” For more report findings, visit www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/statbriefs/sb38.jsp.
CDC to Feature Webcast on Legal Preparedness for Chronic Disease Prevention
As part of its Health Protection Goals series, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will host Cutting Edge Legal Preparedness for Chronic Disease Prevention, on Thursday, November 29, 2007, 2–3:15 pm Eastern Time. The goals of this program are to demonstrate that law can be a practical tool in addressing chronic disease threats and to illuminate, through real-world examples, steps public health practitioners and policy makers can consider taking to shape effective legal preparedness tools. For more information, visit www.publichealthgrandrounds.unc.edu/.
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