For Immediate Release

ASQ Webinar Spotlights Cost of Healthcare Quality

Free Online Event to Focus on Performance Metrics, Results

Milwaukee, Wis., March 4, 2008 – Dr. Brent James, a world-renowned expert in the field of healthcare performance improvement, will share his unique perspective on the relationship between performance metrics and financial results in this free seminar offered via the Web by the American Society for Quality (ASQ), www.asq.org.  

The webinar, scheduled for Wednesday, March 26, 1-2 p.m. CDT, is sponsored by Statit Software, a leader in continuous performance improvement solutions for healthcare.  This event will be of interest to healthcare professionals involved in administration, services and policy information who have to provide themselves with the tools and the education to understand that care.  James will examine how policy and financial decisions must be based on information such as data describing the patient population or data defining appropriate levels of care based on acuity of illness or condition.

James, executive director at the Institute for Health Care Delivery Research at Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, is consistently ranked by Modern Healthcare as one of the most powerful physician executives and healthcare executives in its annual polls and has discussed his views on the cost of healthcare quality with national media such as ABC News. 

Healthcare professionals can register for the webinar via ASQ at www.asq.org/healthcareqps/.   

“We are extremely pleased with the outstanding response to our healthcare webinars to-date and believe that by offering expert perspectives by respected professionals such as Dr. James, we continue to raise the bar on educating today’s healthcare professionals,” 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.