Quality Quarterly

HQI President’s Message

Earlier this month, California reached a milestone that at many times throughout the course of the past year might have seemed unattainable. The state has now “reopened” for business, retiring the color-coded tier system and relaxing social distancing and capacity restrictions. After more than 15 months of numerous public health orders, three surges of cases, countless mask and gown changes along with many sleepless nights, the COVID-19 pandemic has finally given us a little bit of breathing room.  

Protecting your Organization from Ransomware

The 2021 wave of ransomware attacks has washed over every major business sector — including health care. Moreover, a Wall Street Journal article dated June 10 pointed out that one group of ransomware criminals is specifically targeting hospitals. This unfortunate reality strongly suggests that everyone in the CHA/HQI community should be working to avoid becoming a ransomware victim. This article will discuss high-priority items for organizations to pursue in that effort and identify some important strategies that sometimes get overlooked. Together, this information will hopefully help bolster your barriers against ransomware. 

The Shocking Truth Regarding Job-Related Problems Prior to Nurse Suicide

It has often been referred to as the “silence of shame.” Mental health conditions, substance use, and workplace events have been documented as contributing antecedents to nurse suicides. When a nurse is at risk for losing or loses his/her license, the psychological impact can be devastating. The experience of isolation, feelings of failure, public humiliation, […]

Latest Quality Transparency Dashboards Released in June

HQI, in cooperation with the Patient Safety Movement Foundation and the California Hospital Association (CHA), creates and distributes quarterly dashboards of publicly available quality data for each CHA acute care member hospital. These model dashboards currently provide information on eight measures.  The five outcome measures are:   Central line-associated blood stream infection   Colon surgical site infection   Nulliparous, term, singleton, vertex Cesarean birth rate    In-hospital sepsis mortality rate     Hospital-wide all-cause 30-day unplanned readmission rate    The three […]

HQI President’s Message

For the past year, while much of the state has been locked down — working remotely and enjoying perhaps a slower pace of life — it’s been quite the opposite for our front-line health care workers. They stepped up, answered the call, working round the clock to care for patients, both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19.    Through countless hand washings and gown changes, they had […]