2004 HealthMart Conference - Session 1 Description
"Crossing the Quality Chasm: How do we get there from here?"
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Session 1 Description
"Government Agency / Organization Initiatives"
Focus on Meaningful, Measurable Results |
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The effective use of data to improve health care quality involves careful upfront decision-making, and the leaders of several Massachusetts agencies will discuss how they make decisions about what to measure and report in order to achieve meaningful results, according to Nancy Achin Audesse, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine.
Audesse will moderate a panel discussion of "Government Agency/Organization Initiatives" during the Consortium's 2004 HealthMart Conference, "Crossing the Quality Chasm: How do we get there from here?" on Friday, October 29, at the Westin Copley Place.
Joining Audesse on the panel will be Jeffrey M. East, President and CEO of MassPRO; Nancy Ridley, MS, Assistant Commissioner for the Department of Public Health and Director of the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety and Medical Error Reduction; and Tom Dehner, Deputy Medicaid Director in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services, (not pictured) discussing Medicaid.
East, whose independent organization is focused solely on health care quality improvement, said he will discuss collaborative efforts that have shown positive results, choosing from among efforts involving immunization, standing orders or doctors docket.
"We are working with CMS (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, formerly HCFA) to evolve from the traditional punitive review audit to pro-active use of data," he said.
MassPRO works with the Department of Public Health and other entities to provide an integrated approach to quality improvement. "Our collaborative projects get real results, and we will have tangible impacts in the next year for those attending the conference," he said.
Dehner will discuss how quality activities differ for Medicaid programs, focusing on the specific quality initiatives that MassHealth provides.
"We see that a lot of our quality work is not just clinical, but also administrative," said Dehner. "We're looking at everything. Medicaid is not just looking at the bottom line, but we also can't avoid looking at the bottom line."
He gave as an example the MassHealth drug list, created with cost-effectiveness in mind, but through a quality-driven process inclusive of clinicians.
Ridley will describe the Lehman Center's recent development of best practices for bariatric (weight loss) surgery as well as the development and implementation of AHRQ federally supported patient safety initiatives.
She also will summarize the Lehman Center and DPH approach to developing current and future best practices to address issues such as communication of critical test results, reconciliation of medications, reducing infections and disclosure of medical errors. This fall marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Globe health reporter Betsy Lehman, for whom the center is named, due to a medication error.
If you would like additional information on sponsorship opportunities for this or other events, please contact Arleen Coletti, Director of Member & Exhibiting Services via e-mail or by phone 781-768-2512.
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