Overview

Part of the public hospital mission has always been to provide safe, high quality health care to all patients regardless of ability to pay. As reimbursement becomes linked to performance, quality of care increasingly has a critical financial implication for all hospitals. Moreover, as hospital data is posted for key quality indicators on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)’s “Hospital Compare” Web site, hospital quality has never been more public. NAPH has recognized this changing landscape and made quality and patient safety a priority under its current strategic plan.

NAPH uses the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) definition of quality and its six aims for improvement as context for research and educational activities on behalf of our members.  The IOM has defined quality as “the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge.” The six aims for improvement are to provide care that is:

1. Safe - avoiding patient injuries;
2. Effective - providing evidenced-based care to all who need it, and providing only those services that are likely to benefit the patient (i.e., avoiding both overuse and under-use of services);
3. Patient-centered - ensuring that care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs, and values;
4. Timely - reducing waiting times for care;
5. Efficient - avoiding waste (particularly of supplies, equipment, and energy); and
6. Equitable - providing consistently high-quality care to all, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, geographic location, primary language spoken, or socioeconomic status.

To best serve its members, NAPH’s quality and safety activities involve:

• Supporting members as they continue to improve the delivery of care;
• Conducting research on promising practices and disseminating findings to members;
• Tracking the policy landscape around quality improvement and patient safety at the national level;
• Providing educational experiences for members from leading experts on quality and safety issues;
• Obtaining feedback from members that inform NAPH’s advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill and the Administration on issues affecting quality and safety;
• Identifying individuals from our members who are interested in participating in strategic projects at the national level
• Developing relationships and partnerships with other healthcare organizations to support the needs of our safety net members
• Contributing to the growing body of knowledge on performance improvement, quality, and patient safety science; and
• Communicating beyond Capitol Hill about the high quality and safe delivery of care offered by the nation’s the safety-net hospitals.

NAPH shares our members’ commitment to high quality and safe care, and we look forward to hearing from you on these important issues.

For more information, please contact Jane Hooker at jhooker@naph.org.