Wednesday, June 8, 2011

A Bit More Background

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) in Crossing the Quality Chasm listed 6 areas in need of improvement:
  • Safety—avoid injury to patients from the care that is in tended to help them
  • Timeliness—reduce waits and harmful delays
  • Effectiveness—provide services based on scientific knowl edge to all who could benefit and refrain from providing ser vices to those not likely to benefit (avoiding overuse and underuse, respectively)
  • Efficiency—avoid waste
  • Equitability—provide care that does not vary in quality be cause of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographical location, and socioeconomic status
  • Patient centeredness—provide care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values
These are the areas that I hope to write about in this blog.  I'll write about each area (in no particular order).  And I'll try to cover each in terms of its background, challenges, possible solutions & progress. From time to time I'll also write about the quality improvement movement in healthcare.  I may also write about one-off topics that are of interest to me. My goal is to write about the healthcare delivery system today in a way that is understandable to the non-expert; addressed to the current and/or future patient rather than the professionals.

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