Now that Massachusetts has the attention of the nation as we move forward in providing residents with access to more affordable health care, it’s time to take up the next challenge of ensuring that the medical care provided is of the highest possible quality.
Quality improvement efforts generally focus on hospitals and other medical institutions. These efforts are very important – but they are not enough. I say that as someone who has spent a good part of his professional life involved in these efforts. I strongly believe that to be effective, we need to do more. We need to make sure that patients – whose health depends on the quality of the care they receive – and their caregivers have a stronger voice in the quality conversation.
That is why I am so excited about a new effort called The Partnership for Healthcare Excellence. This is a new non-profit that includes more than 40 organizations – including the Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council, consumer associations, disease and advocacy organizations, doctors, nurses, hospitals, insurers, business groups,
and labor.
Today, the Partnership is launching a unique statewide public education campaign. You’ll see ads running in your local paper and online, and soon you’ll be reading about events in your local
community.
By arming consumers with useful information such as how to take medications safely, choose a doctor or hospital, and prepare for doctor and hospital visits – the Partnership is them tools to improve the quality of their care. It will also be encouraging consumers to advocate for overall system change – like supporting the wider use of e-prescribing and the rapid introduction of tools to help consumers manage their medications.
We all know the sad litany of statistics about medical errors. We also know that one of the strongest weapons we have in the fight for quality is the informed, empowered and engaged patient. Today, patients have a new ally in the fight for quality – The Partnership for Healthcare Excellence.
Jim Conway, Chair, Partnership for Healthcare Excellence
Senior Vice President, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
As a new student in the realm of public health, I actually only recently learned about the shocking number of medical errors that occur in our hospitals. These errors have outrageous costs not only in terms of lives and dollars but also in terms of overall population health, patient-doctor trust and productivity. While the road to improving safety in hospitals requires more organization and vigilance on the part of doctors and hospitals (in addition to many other structural changes), I agree that patient education is an important tool that must not be forgotten. In fact, it adheres strongly to some of the basic premises of public health: education of the community and preventative medicine through changes in lifestyles, early diagnoses, and elevated levels of monitoring and assessment of disease. I am therefore really happy to learn about the development of The Partnership for Healthcare Excellence right here in my own state. The organization’s website gives useful links for a variety of topics, ranging from questions to ask one’s doctor during an appointment to information on how to choose a doctor and hospital that best suit the needs of an individual patient and/or medical condition. This self-sorting allows an increased likelihood that patients’ preferences will be met. As an aspiring doctor I hope to see patients who have made an educated decision to come to me, and who have confidence that my hospital can provide them with quality care. As a patient, I hope that our education on such issues spur increases in accountability for hospitals and doctors, and therefore lead to a higher level of quality overall. In all, I think the concept of the Partnership is great. I would like to see further development of the website to make it more informative and user friendly (e.g. fewer links to other sites and more “fact sheets” of readily available tips) and I have yet to see the ads in my local newspaper which may be better suited to reaching those who don’t have access to the internet or do not yet know of the organization’s existence. I look forward to seeing advertising around Boston and to the improvements in health care delivery that organizations like this may help to bring about.