There’s growing and undeniable momentum to address deficiencies in healthcare quality in the US and in Massachusetts. Just in the past month, Medicare announced that beginning 10/08, it will no longer pay hospitals for care related to hospital infections and so-called “never events;” the MA Department of Public Health issued a new report on hospital infections and unveiled their new initiative to publicly report infection rates to the public; and the MA Quality and Cost Council is advancing an ambitious quality agenda.
We know the overwhelming majority of doctors, nurses, hospitals and other providers are committed to quality care and want to provide only the highest quality care. We know most errors are related to system problems, not individual behavior. And we know that health care too often needlessly harms patients and falls far short of the Institute of Medicine’s standards that care be: patient centered, timely, safe, efficient, effective, and equitable.
A voice often missing from conversations about quality is the consumer’s. At Health Care for All, we have created a Consumer Health Quality Council to give a voice to consumers about quality. Council members have been harmed and have seen family members suffer because of infections, misdiagnoses, miscommunication, and other medical errors. They are motivated by their personal experiences not to sue, but to advocate for better public policies to ensure quality care for all MA residents.
The Council is working hard to support a bill to be heard by the Legislature’s Committee on Public Health next week (9/12, 10am, State House Hearing Room A-1). The bill, HB 2226/SB 1277 (lead sponsors are Sen. Richard Moore and Rep. Denise Provost), contains six ideas to improve health care quality in Massachusetts:
* Public reporting of hospital infection rates and a mandate to reduce rates to zero or as close to zero as practicable;
* Public reporting of never events (e.g.: wrong site surgery, wrong person surgery, leaving an object in a patient, serious medication errors);
* Allowing providers to apologize without the apology being used against them medical liability action;
* Requiring providers to disclose an adverse event to a patient;
* Requiring hospitals to establish Patient and Family Councils;
* Requiring hospitals to establish Rapid Response Teams that can be activated by patients and family members.
You can learn more about the bill here. Contact us and your Rep/Senator if these issues are important to you.
John E McDonough – mcdonough@hcfama.org – is executive director of Health Care For All.
DPH Geriatric Care Services at the DPH Lemuel Shattuck Hospital need
to set up wall wired landline telephones at bedside for DPH Geriatric
Care Services patients confined to bed. It’s the 21st century !
.
DPH Geriatric Care Services Patients confined to bed are more
isolated from their families and friends by not having working
telephones.
.
Cordless telephones and cellphones do not work well due to
interference from other hospital equipment signals.
.
Having wall wired landline telephones for DPH Geriatric Care
Services patients confined to bed is less an expense than the
current greater costs to the detriment in nursing staff time
relaying messages from friends and families and explaining to
callers about the telephone predicament at the DPH Lemuel Shattuck
Hospital Geriatric Care Services. It’s not the 20th century anymore!
.
Nursing staff time needs to be more dedicated to care than the
current handling all the telephone calls for all the DPH Geriatric
Care Services patients !
Please look into the updating DPH telecommunications
and DPH Information Technology IT for DPH Geriatric Care Services’
patients.