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(WCBF: Las Vegas) -- WCBF will host the Seventh Annual Six Sigma and Process Improvement in Healthcare Summit in Las Vegas, April 1–4, 2008. The focus will be on lean, Six Sigma, and other process improvement methodologies within the health care system. The summit will feature nine presummit…
(U.S. Senate: Washington, D.C.) -- The cost of poor quality in health care accounts for from 30 to 60 cents of every health care dollar. Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) along with a bipartisan group of legislators have introduced a bill that would expedite the adoption of…
(USGBC: Washington, D.C.) -- The U.S. Green Building Council and the Green Guide for Health Care have agreed to help green the health care industry by fostering best practices and ensuring that the health care industry has the tools and resources to build green. Green hospital buildings are…
(Mercy Health System: Janesville, Wisconsin) -- Mercy Health System, a recipient of the 2007 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, is recognized for organizational excellence across its entire vertically integrated organization spanning three hospitals, 285 employed physicians and their…
(NQF: Washington, D.C.) -- National Quality Forum is formally soliciting candidate measures for review and evaluation for potential inclusion in its set of NQF-endorsed voluntary consensus standards for health care information technology (HIT). Any organization or individual may submit…
(CIGNA HealthCare: Bloomfield, Connecticut) -- In an effort to manage the high-volume data used in its health advocacy programs, CIGNA HealthCare is teaming up with Thomson Healthcare’s MedStat data services. By employing greater data management, the goal for CIGNA HealthCare is to engage…
(The Center for Business Intelligence: Woburn, Massachusetts) – CBI will host the conference with the theme, “Implement a Strategy for Continuous Quality Systems Improvement in Accordance with ICH Q10 Guidelines,” January 24–25, 2008, in Philadelphia.ICH Q10 describes one comprehensive approach…
(AHRQ: Rockville, Maryland) -- An array of toolkits designed to help doctors, nurses, hospital managers, patients, and others reduce medical errors was recently released by the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.The 17 toolkits, developed by AHRQ-funded…
(Cardinal Health: Dublin, Ohio) -- Cardinal Health, a global provider of products and services that improve the safety and productivity of health care, recently announced a new service to help hospitals combat methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections that are responsible…
(CBI: Woburn, Massachusetts) -- The Center for Business Intelligence will hold the Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) Process Improvement Summit for Bio/Pharmaceutical & Medical Devices on Jan. 24-25, 2008 in Philadelphia. This conference focuses on industry-specific tools and…
(Sciemetric Instruments: Ottawa, Canada) -- Sciemetric Instruments has announced the general availability of SigPOD Medical, a system to verify parts and processes in the manufacturing of medical devices.Regulatory initiatives such as the Food and Drug Administration’s Process Analytical…
In October, Medtronic Inc., makers of a wide range of medical devices, issued a voluntary suspension of its Sprint Fidelis defibrillation leads due to an increasing rate of lead fractures.Rob Clark, Medtronic senior director of public relations, says the decision was based on both a statistical…
(Pfizer: New York, and Sermo: Cambridge, Massachusetts) -- Pfizer Inc. and Sermo, the nation’s largest online physician community, recently announced a strategic collaboration designed to redefine the way physicians in the United States and the health care industry work together to improve…
(Juran: Southbury, Connecticut) -- A growing trend among hospitals is the use of lean techniques to improve patient safety measures, in turn improving the overall quality of care. Juran Healthcare’s patient safety model incorporates the Juran Trilogy (safety planning, safety compliance, and…
(Duke University Medical Center: Durham, North Carolina) -- Using acupuncture before and during surgery significantly reduces the level of pain and the amount of potent painkillers needed by patients after the surgery is over, according to Duke University Medical Center anesthesiologists who…
(ANSI: Washington, D.C.) -- Filling a prescription is faster and more convenient than ever thanks to a new standard from ANSI-accredited standards developer the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs Inc. Providing general guidelines for developers of pharmacy or physician management…
(NCQA: Washington) -- The quality of care for more than 80 million people in the United States enrolled in 767 accountable health plans improved in 2006, according to a new report by the National Committee for Quality Assurance.The State of Health Care Quality 2007 reports that commercial health…
(Johns Hopkins Medicine: Baltimore, Maryland) -- Mandatory classes that aim to improve the quality of medical care seem to successfully teach doctors new concepts but don’t necessarily improve patient outcomes, suggests a thorough review of articles that examine quality improvement (QI)…
(ASQ: Milwaukee, Winsconsin) -- As Food and Drug Administration regulations and quality system requirements tighten, manufacturers can’t afford the ramifications of unidentified risks in production. To help educate producers, the American Society for Quality is offering a one-day virtual course…
(National Institutes of Health: Bethesda, Maryland) -- National Institutes of Health director, Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., has announced the expansion of a national consortium that is transforming how clinical and translational research is conducted at academic health centers across the country.…
(Canon Communications: Los Angeles) Canon Communications LLC, a major producer of tradeshows and publications dedicated to the worldwide $220 billion medical device manufacturing market, is introducing a new show—Medical Design & Manufacturing (MD&M) Midwest—for medical manufacturers…
(NCQA: Washington) -- Fourteen of the nation’s leading preferred provider organizations (PPOs) covering 10.2 million U.S. citizens are among the first to come forward for evaluation under NCQA’s new Health Plan Accreditation standards. The program evaluates PPO and managed-care plans under a common…
(ISO: Geneva) -- A new International Organization for Standardization technical report is aimed at reducing the number of patients harmed, or even killed, due to the misuse or malfunction of software for health care. In the past, health-related software was primarily applied to relatively…
(NCQA: Washington) -- Preferred provider organizations (PPOs), which cover nearly two-thirds of all privately insured Americans, will be required to report on the quality of care and service their members receive under standards that were released on Aug. 1 by the National Committee for Quality…
(Commonwealth Fund: New York City) -- As health care quality and patient safety concerns rise, the latest Commonwealth Fund health care opinion leaders survey finds leaders united behind several key reform measures: more than half (56 percent) support the creation of a new public-private…
