For Immediate Release

ASQ Offers Free Healthcare Seminar On Composite Performance Measures

Doylestown Hospital Shares Techniques That Maximize Results

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, December 6, 2007 —Healthcare professionals today are under more pressure than ever to measure performance and show results – lives depend upon it. Using well-designed measures to accelerate quality improvement is the focus of the second in a series of four free sponsor-supported seminars offered via the Web by the American Society for Quality (ASQ) www.asq.org.

The second Healthcare Quality Practice Seminar, Designing and Implementing Composite Performance Measures to Accelerate Quality Improvement,is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 17, 1–2 p.m. CDT. The webinar features Health Quality Partners and Doylestown Hospital, both located in Doylestown, Penn., and is sponsored by Statit Software Inc., a leader in continuous performance improvement solutions for healthcare.

The seminar presenters are Ken Coburn, M.D., MPH president and CEO, Health Quality Partners, and Tim Hediger, MS, director, Improving Systems, Doylestown Hospital. They will discuss how composite measures work in combination with Pareto charts to increase reliability of care, align work of multiple teams and help leadership identify which processes most required their support.

Each webinar in the ASQ Healthcare Quality Practice Seminar series will last one hour and will include a 45-minute case presentation followed by 15 minutes of Q&A.  Seminars will be of interest to healthcare quality professionals and healthcare administrators who have responsibility for quality improvement within their organization.

Healthcare professionals today are under more pressure than ever to measure performance and show results – lives depend upon it. Using well-designed measures to accelerate quality improvement is the focus of the second in a series of four free sponsor-supported seminars offered via the Web by the American Society for Quality (ASQ) www.asq.org.

The second Healthcare Quality Practice Seminar, Designing and Implementing Composite Performance Measures to Accelerate Quality Improvement,is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 17, 1-2 p.m. CDT. The webinar features Health Quality Partners and Doylestown Hospital, both located in Doylestown, Penn., and is sponsored by Statit Software Inc., a leader in continuous performance improvement solutions for healthcare.

The seminar presenters are Ken Coburn, M.D., MPH president and CEO, Health Quality Partners, and Tim Hediger, MS, director, Improving Systems, Doylestown Hospital. They will discuss how composite measures work in combination with Pareto charts to increase reliability of care, align work of multiple teams and help leadership identify which processes most required their support.

Each webinar in the ASQ Healthcare Quality Practice Seminar series will last one hour and will include a 45-minute case presentation followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. Seminars will be of interest to healthcare quality professionals and healthcare administrators who have responsibility for quality improvement within their organization.

Healthcare professionals can register for the webinar via ASQ at www.asq.org/healthcareqps/. Future webinar dates and times will be available at this site.

“Based upon the high level of interest in our first seminar, we believe that healthcare professionals are hungry for valuable real-world lessons that they can take back and use in their own organizations,” said Paul Borawski, ASQ executive director and chief strategic officer.

The American Society for Quality, www.asq.org, has been the world’s leading authority on quality for more than 60 years. With more than 93,000 individual and organizational members, the professional association advances learning, quality improvement and knowledge exchange to improve business results, and to create better workplaces and communities worldwide. As champion of the quality movement, ASQ offers technologies, concepts, tools and training to quality professionals, quality practitioners and everyday consumers, encouraging all to Make Good Great®. ASQ has been the sole administrator of the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award since 1991.Headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis., ASQ is a founding partner of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a prominent quarterly economic indicator, and also produces the Quarterly Quality Report.