HHS unveils new national quality improvement strategy

The Department of Health and Human Services on Monday rolled out its “National Strategy for Quality Improvements in Health Care,” a “first-ever” plan to guide quality improvement measures at local, state and national levels. On Thursday, the 5th Annual McKnight’s Online Expo will feature a webcast discussing changing quality improvement initiatives.

Created under the recent healthcare reform law, the National Quality Strategy (NQS) is designed to move the healthcare system to work better for providers by reducing administrative burdens and helping with collaborative efforts, according to an HHS release. The NQS will establish six priorities for accomplishing its overarching goal of better care, affordable care and healthier people and communities.

Those priorities are: reducing harm caused in the delivery of care; ensuring that care engages each person and family as partners; ensuring that each person and family are engaged as partners in their care; promoting effective prevention and treatment practices for the leading causes of mortality, starting with cardiovascular disease; working with communities to promote wide use of best practices to enable healthy living; and making quality care more affordable by developing and spreading new health care delivery models

Quality care initiatives will be the topic of hot conversation during the final webcast of the 5th Annual McKnight’s Online Expo, Mar. 23-24. Lori-Ann Griffin, RN, a supervising nurse consultant for the State of Connecticut’s Department of Public Health, will present ways in which long-term care providers can utilize new quality improvement tools to boost resident care. Attendees to the live webcasts can earn free continuing education units. For more information, and to register for free, click here.