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March 2009
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Send news items to e-news@nahq.org.
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American Data Network Forms a PSO
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American Data Network (ADN) recently announced the formation of a patient safety organization (PSO), which received its designation through the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The federal designation allows the PSO the legal authority to collect occurrence data without subjecting individual data to unintended use, such as evidence in medical malpractice lawsuits. |
After being aggregated and de-identified, the data will be shared with the public and with hospitals through timely reports. Hospital participation with a PSO is voluntary. ADN also will offer a Web-based application to assist facilities with the capture, analysis, and submission of patient safety data. For more information, contact NAHQ member Sherry Bird, ADN’s manager of business development, at sbird@americandatanetwork.com.
What Role Do Physicians Play in Quality?
NAHQ e-news recently asked NAHQ-member physicians to respond to the above question. Here are two responses. All NAHQ members are free to send a response to e-news@nahq.org.
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“My own views on this topic have undergone significant transformation over the past few years as I began to understand healthcare as a complex adaptive system. Whereas in the past I concentrated on processes and process improvement, I now see that processes, structures, and patterns are all intertwined in a complex way. Attempting to change any one of these necessitates changes in all of them. Physicians in particular need to understand that! In my experience, physicians tend to either wish to control quality improvement or ignore it completely. I guess we exhibit an ‘oscillating attractor pattern.’ Everyone, physicians in particular, needs to play an active and participatory role in quality improvement so we do not end up having a very stable mediocrity.” |
Russ Gonnering, MD MMM FACS CPHQ, clinical professor based in Elm Grove, WIM
| “Physicians play a large role in quality, especially with the attention being paid to reimbursement based on quality measures. [As for the value that NAHQ membership provides physicians], the value for me comes from having my ear on the ground about what is going in the quality arena. I am a healthcare consultant doing Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set [HEDIS], pay-for-performance compliance audits, and regulatory compliance reviews. I need to understand where the field is going.” |
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Kevin Park, MD, principal and medical director, Attest Health Care Advisors, LLC, Chicago
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