Author: IPRO

Improving the Measurement of Surgical Site Infection Risk Stratification/Outcome Detection

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

The purpose of this project was to explore opportunities for enhancing the detection and surveillance of inpatient-acquired surgical site infections (SSIs) for four target procedures—herniorrhaphy, coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), and hip and knee arthroplasty (including primary total arthroplasty, primary hemiarthroplasty, and revision procedures). Four delivery systems came together in order to provide the most representative results and generalizable tools. Collaborating delivery systems include Denver Health (a safety-net hospital located in Denver, CO), Intermountain Healthcare (a large, nonprofit, integrated delivery system based in Salt Lake City, UT), and the Salt Lake City Veterans Affairs Medical Center (a VAMC hospital located in Salt Lake City); representativeness was further extended by including the Vail Valley Medical Center (Vail, CO), a Denver Health partner. A major focus of the project was to test the usefulness of computer algorithms that could alert infection control specialists to patients likely to have surgical site infections on the basis of retrospective analysis of electronic medical records, laboratory test results, and patient demographics.

Toolkit To Promote Safe Surgery

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

The Toolkit To Promote Safe Surgery helps perioperative and surgical units in hospitals identify opportunities to improve care and safety practices and implement evidence-based interventions to prevent surgical site infections. The toolkit has evidence-based, practical resources that reflect the real-world experiences of the frontline clinicians and subject matter experts who participated in the AHRQ Safety Program for Surgery, a national implementation project in which approximately 200 hospitals participated and successfully reduced surgical site infections. It builds on AHRQ’s Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) and the core CUSP toolkit by providing specific tools focused on the surgical setting to help hospitals reduce surgical site infections and other complications. This toolkit focuses on surgery in hospitals

Providing Language Services to Diverse Populations: Lessons from the Field

Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of Minority Health (OMH)

Across the country, health care organizations are using innovative approaches to provide language assistance services to individuals with limited English proficiency. This resource discusses a number of approaches used by these organizations to provide language assistance services to persons with limited English proficiency based on the findings of case studies conducted with a variety of health care organizations.

Guide to Developing a Language Access Plan

Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of Minority Health (OMH)

Effective communication is critical to ensuring understanding, empowering patients, and providing high quality care. A language access plan can help ensure that an organization provides high quality and appropriate language services. This guide identifies ways that providers can assess their programs and develop language access plans to ensure persons with limited English proficiency have meaningful access to their programs.

A Practical Guide to Implementing the National CLAS Standards: For Racial, Ethnic and Linguistic Minorities, People with Disabilities and Sexual and Gender Minorities

Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of Minority Health (OMH)

The purpose of this toolkit is to enable organizations to implement the National CLAS Standards and improve health equity. It is organized according to the enhanced National CLAS Standards, and provides practical tools and examples of CLAS, in addition to efforts to implement the National CLAS Standards that can be adapted for use by health care organizations. It is intended for organizations that have already decided to pursue CLAS, to improve equity and eliminate health care disparities.

Building an Organizational Response to Health Disparities: Five Pioneers from the Field

Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of Minority Health (OMH)

Learn how five organizations have made a business case for addressing disparities in health care quality and access. Organizations such as hospitals, health plans, health systems, and others may see their own motivations and challenges reflected in these examples. These case studies increase the evidence base for health organizations in support of building a business case to reduce health disparities.

DISPARITIES IMPACT STATEMENT

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of Minority Health (OMH)

Learn how to identify, prioritize, and take action on health disparities by championing the Disparities Impact Statement in your organization. Participants receive personalized technical assistance focused on
strengthening your quality improvement program through a series of consultations from subject matter experts.

Mapping Medicare Disparities

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Office of Minority Health (OMH)

Chronic diseases pose a significant problem in the United States resulting in substantial morbidity, mortality, disability, and cost. The CMS Office of Minority Health has designed an interactive map, the Mapping Medicare Disparities Tool, to identify areas of disparities between subgroups of Medicare beneficiaries (e.g., racial and ethnic groups) in health outcomes, utilization, and spending. It is an excellent starting point to understand and investigate geographic and racial and ethnic differences in health outcomes. This information may be used to inform policy decisions and to target populations and geographies for potential interventions.