Opening Statement of
Frank J. Sardone
President & CEO
Bronson Healthcare Group, Kalamazoo, Michigan
ASQ Health Care Panel
For the 21 st Century Health Care Caucus
Washington, D.C.
April 26, 2006
Impact of public performance reporting on performance
The 1999 Institute of Medicine ’s report “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System” was a call to action for the healthcare industry. Healthcare has an opportunity to become an industry focused on excellence. The second IOM report in 2001 “Crossing the Quality Chasm” brought to light the six IOM aims and the changes that need to occur in healthcare that will ultimately transform our industry. Current approaches will be discarded in favor of new, more beneficial approaches in providing care to patients.
Historically, the approach in healthcare has been one of secrecy. We must instead embrace the concept of transparency when it comes to hospital performance data. By sharing performance data within the industry and publicly, we can bring healthcare to a level of excellence that our patients not only expect but deserve.
Today, hospital data is available through a growing number of public and private services. For example, through the Hospital Quality Initiative, hospital data on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ core measures is widely available on the Hospital Compare website. The intent of the Hospital Quality Initiative is to stimulate improvements in the quality of care delivery by distributing objective, easy to understand data on hospital performance. Public reporting on performance creates incentives for hospitals to improve care, supports public accountability and encourages consumers to make better informed decisions about how to get the best hospital care.
At Bronson, we have formalized processes for measuring and monitoring our performance on the core measures as well as literally hundreds of quality indicators. More importantly, we have strategies in place to improve indicators where we are falling short on performance. Understanding your performance results and comparing them to others in the industry can be the first step toward improvement.
The Bronson journey to performance excellence
In 1999, Bronson began a journey to excellence using the Baldrige Criteria which provide a solid framework for pursuing excellence, not only in healthcare, but any industry. Regarding organizational performance, the Criteria challenge you to look beyond internal targets and compare to the very best within or even outside of the industry. By focusing on best-in-class comparisons we seek new ways to raise the bar on our own performance. Baldrige award recipients have a very important obligation as role models to share with others. We need to share not only our performance results, but more importantly, the processes we use to achieve and sustain those results. It is through this sharing that we can assist others on their journey to excellence. In the Baldrige way, we need to measure what’s important, compare to and strive to be the very best, monitor our performance, and continuously seek ways to improve our results. The motivation for the healthcare industry should be the pursuit of excellence.
Most healthcare providers join this profession because they are caring, giving people who want to make a positive difference in people’s lives. It is up to us, as the leaders in healthcare, to harness the collective energy of our skilled and talented workforce to deliver the highest quality of care to our patients.
View more statements…
