One point we continually stress in the pages of Health Facilities Management (HFM) is the need to get administrative buy-in on new plans. Whether it’s an initiative to improve environmental performance, streamline a construction process or reduce power consumption, support from the top is often crucial.
So, it stands to reason, when a program to improve organizational performance is directly engaging the executive ranks, our readers should pay immediate attention. That is why I decided to use this month’s column to talk about the Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence (HPOE) program by the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the AHA Quality Center (www.ahaqualitycenter.org).
The program’s vital relevance to HFM’s readers is apparent in the initial four areas identified by HPOE as opportunities for health care improvement: health care-associated infections, patient throughput, medication management and patient safety.
Bringing the theory down to the real world, the first support tool issued by HPOE—a resource called Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence: A Guide to Superior Performance Improvement—has been distributed to hospitals across the country. It features 28 case histories telling how hospitals achieved success in the four areas for improvement.
Many of the case studies are extremely applicable to HFM’s readers, including recaps on how Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., improved ED flow through automated tracking and how Gundersen Lutheran Health System in La Crosse, Wis., reduced patient falls.
Health facilities professionals would be wise to log on to and download their own copy of the guide, because it’s a safe bet that their CEOs are reading it.
This article first appeared in the August 2009 issue of HFM.
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