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(NIST: Gaithersburg, MD) -- A New York Times editorial, “A Formula for Cutting Health Costs,” highlights the 2011 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient, Southcentral Foundation, and how it has achieved “startling efficiencies: emergency room use has been reduced by 50 percent, hospital…
(Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare: Oakbrook Terrace, IL) -- An estimated 80 percent of serious medical errors involve miscommunication between caregivers when patients are transferred or handed off. In addition to patient harm, defective hand-offs can lead to delays in treatment…
(ThedaCare: Appleton, WI) -- The ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value has published a new white paper, “Measuring Value: Linking Cost and Quality of Patient Outcomes to Drive Organization and Industry Improvements.” This health care value report illustrates the power of value metrics in improving…
(Productivity Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- Healthcare Kaizen, by Mark Graban (Productivity Press, 2012), focuses on the principles and methods of daily continuous improvement, or kaizen, for health care professionals and organizations. Kaizen is a Japanese word that means “change for the better,” as…
(Productivity Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- There is a secret inside health care, and it’s this: We can do health care for a lot less money. The only way to do that is to do it a lot better. We know it’s possible because it is happening now. In pockets and branches across health care, people are…
(ZS Associates: Evanston, IL) -- While incentives can be an effective motivator in health care, a new study from global consulting firm ZS Associates suggests that more than 75 percent of incentives are so small or poorly communicated that they go unnoticed by providers. As a result, more than $20…
(Eagle: Tampa, FL) -- Eagle Product Inspection has launched the Eagle Pack 400 HC, an energy-efficient X-ray inspection system designed for easy and efficient cleaning in the harsh wash-down environments of the packaged meat, poultry, and dairy industries, where daily sanitization of equipment is…
(Kauffman Foundation: Kansas City, MO) -- Cost trends in U.S. health care consistently increase at about 2.5 percentage points faster than the general rate of inflation—clearly an unsustainable rate. To address what it called "America’s most urgent public policy problem," the Ewing Marion Kauffman…
(Instron: Norwood, MA) -- Instron, a leading provider of testing equipment solutions designed to evaluate mechanical properties of materials and components, has launched BioBox, a controlled air environment ideally designed for testing of large or long medical devices at body temperature. The…
(ThedaCare: Appleton, WI) -- ThedaCare has announced the launch of Potent Medicine: The Collaborative Cure for Healthcare, the latest title from award-winning author John Toussaint, M.D., of the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value.
Potent Medicine (ThedaCare, 2012), outlines the essential…
(NTOCC: Washington, D.C.) -- The National Transitions of Care Coalition (NTOCC), an organization dedicated to improving patient transitions through the health care system—i.e., when the patient leaves one care setting and moves to another care setting—has launched a new tool to facilitate the…
(Booz & Co.: New York) -- Confirming pessimism about the state of the pharmaceutical industry, a recent survey of U.S.- and European Union-based pharmaceutical sales and marketing executives reveals that 68 percent believe “the current business model is broken.” The survey, conducted jointly by…
(Productivity Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- Instead of building new hospitals that import old systems and problems, the time has come to reexamine many of our ideas about what a hospital should be. Can a building foster continuous improvement? How can we design it to be flexible and useful well into…
(Lenox: Trevose, PA) -- Lenox Instrument Co.’s Micro Borescope delivers a clear, bright image ideal for close-range inspection of medical devices like coronary stents; tubing; micromolded, machined, and cast parts; and electronic and mechanical assemblies—particularly where access is limited and…
(IHI: Cambridge, MA) -- The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), an independent nonprofit organization that works with health care providers and leaders throughout the world to achieve safe and effective health care, will host its 13th Annual International Summit on Improving Patient Care in…
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has announced major changes in how the nation’s medical residency programs will be accredited in the years ahead, putting in place an outcomes-based evaluation system where the doctors of tomorrow will be measured for their competency…
(IHI: Cambridge, MA) -- The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), an independent nonprofit organization founded in 1991 to help lead the improvement of health care throughout the world, will host its 13th Annual International Summit, “Improving Patient Care in the Office Practice and the…
(WCBF: Chicago) -- The Worldwide Conventions and Business Forums (WCBF), an independent organization headquartered in Chicago that researches and produces high-quality, senior-level lean, Six Sigma, and process excellence events, has a predominant mission for 2012. Its mission is to save as many…
(University at Buffalo: Buffalo, NY) -- The ISO 13485 internal auditor training program from the University at Buffalo provides the skills necessary to perform process audits in the medical device industry, which results in findings for continual improvement. Participants learn audit activities and…
(IHI: Cambridge, MA) -- The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) has announced details of its 13th Annual International Summit on Improving Patient Care in the Office Practice & the Community. The popular event brings together health care professionals working in primary care and…
In three years, 157 hospitals participating in the Premier health care alliance’s QUEST have saved an estimated 24,820 lives and reduced health care spending by nearly $4.5 billion.
QUEST can be adopted by any hospital in the nation seeking to track performance against a higher standard of care.…
(ISPE: Tampa, FL) – The International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) has released a new industry guidance document, Project Management for the Pharmaceutical Industry. This guide is the first document of its type to discuss and compile best practices for project management concepts…
(Thomson Reuters: Ann Arbor, MI) -- Thomson Reuters has released its fourth annual study identifying the top U.S. health systems based on balanced, systemwide clinical performance.
The study culled data from more than 300 organizations and singled out 15 hospital systems that achieved superior…
(NSF: Ann Arbor, MI) -- NSF-DBA, an NSF International Health Sciences company providing training, consulting, and auditing for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries, has acquired UK-based medical-device training and consulting company, Pink Associates, with the company’s managing…
(Thomson Reuters: New York) -- In recognition of the International Year of Chemistry 2011, Thomson Reuters published a research report analyzing The Changing Role of Chemistry in Drug Discovery. By tracking pharmaceutical industry data during the last decade along with insights from industry…
