Advancing Excellence in Healthcare Quality: 40 Strategies for Improving Patient Outcomes and Providing, Safe, High-Quality Healthcare

Table of Contents

Foreword by David Nash, MD, MBA

Section 1: Optimize Outcomes

• Chapter 1: The EHR Evolution
• Chapter 2: The CPOE Solution
• Chapter 3: Can I Have Some Support Please?
• Chapter 4: The Future Is Now - e-Prescribing
• Chapter 5: Staying Connected - Patient Portals
• Chapter 6: Med Rec not Med Wreck!
• Chapter 7: Back to Basics: The Med List
• Chapter 8: Improving the Quality of Care
• Chapter 9: Summaries and Transitions of Care
• Chapter 10: Meeting the MU Challenge

Section 2: Reduce Readmissions

• Chapter 11: Person-Centered Care
• Chapter 12: Collaborate, Coordinate, and Integrate
• Chapter 13: Prevent Discharge Disasters
• Chapter 14: A Smooth Transition
• Chapter 15: Patient-Centered Medical Homes
• Chapter 16: Can You Hear Me Now?
• Chapter 17: All Hands on Deck!
• Chapter 18: HAM It Up! (High-Alert Medications)
• Chapter 19: The "Canary in the Coal Mine" Theory
• Chapter 20: "I Can't Even Afford a Free Meal"

Section 3: Minimize Medication Errors

• Chapter 21: The Blame-Free Organization
• Chapter 22: Raising the Bar
• Chapter 23: Deadly Drug Name Mix-Ups
• Chapter 24: Dangerous Drug Interactions
• Chapter 25: Caution: Other Serious Side Effects May Occur
• Chapter 26: Risky Business!
• Chapter 27: You Aren't as Unique as You Think!
• Chapter 28: Get to the Root of the Problem
• Chapter 29: The Lean Transformation
• Chapter 30: 5S - The Visual Workplace

Section 4: Promote Prevention

• Chapter 31: ABCs of HBP
• Chapter 32: Up in Smoke
• Chapter 33: Worth the Weight!
• Chapter 34: The Exercise Rx
• Chapter 35: Diabetes Prevention Plan
• Chapter 36: Prevent What's Preventable
• Chapter 37: Metamorphosis
• Chapter 38: The Complexity of Growing Old
• Chapter 39: Health Literacy
• Chapter 40: Social Determinants of Health

Mary Sue McAslan, is a doctor of pharmacy specializing in medication safety and healthcare quality improvement. Dr. McAslan has led efforts to improve patient outcomes, focusing on patient-centered medical homes, telemedicine clinics, and improved discharge planning. She has hands-on experience with one of the most comprehensive health information systems, including computerized physician order entry, e-prescribing, patient portals, clinical decision support tools, and medication reconciliation.

"Advancing Excellence in Healthcare Quality: 40 Strategies for Improving Patient Outcomes and Providing, Safe, High-Quality Healthcare provides readers with insight into 40 strategies healthcare leaders can use to effect change. Dr. McAslan describes how a patient-centered approach to care can improve health outcomes, increase patient safety, and reduce medical errors. She examines each strategy by describing the system change, providing a rational for implementing the change, and summarizing the "bottom-line" benefit. Written from the clinician's perspective, the book describes how a physician-led team can decrease the fragmentation of the healthcare system, use technology to optimize the coordination of care in the hospital and in the ambulatory setting to prevent readmissions, reduce medication errors, and encourage patients to take personal responsibility for their health. Healthcare leaders will find the book to be a source of ideas for change, and the healthcare providers in their organizations will be able to implement the changes that will affect their patients. It's a book that deserves a wide audience."

SUSAN L. TURNEY, MD, MS, FACMPE, FACP
President and CEO,
MEDICAL GROUP MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION (MGMA)
Englewood, CO

"Advancing Excellence in Healthcare Quality: 40 Strategies for Improving Patient Outcomes and Providing, Safe, High-Quality Healthcare is more than just that. This book is packed with suggestions on how to improve the quality of healthcare. Many of the ideas are new, and integrating them into your everyday practice requires some thought. Read a section each day, follow the wise guidance from Dr. McAslan, and you will practice safer medicine."

KEVIN PHO, MD
Founder, KevinMD.com and Author, Establishing, Managing and Protecting Your Online
Reputation: A Social Media Guide for Physicians and Medical Practices
Nashua, NH

"Dr. McAslan has expertly refined her extensive experience in quality and safety into an immensely readable compilation of practical strategies to make our healthcare system safer and, ultimately, better. By structuring her book around the goals envisioned in the Affordable Care Act, she reaches out to readers in medical practice and hospital settings alike who deal each day with the impacts of this game-changing legislation. Whether it is discussing lean management, team approaches, or electronic health records and patient portals, Mary Sue keeps her compassionate yet practical focus on what readers with clinical and administrative responsibilities can do now to improve the quality of care for their patients and communities. Read this book and you will come away with doable strategies to optimize outcomes, reduce hospital readmissions, minimize medication errors, and promote the prevention of disease."

ELIZABETH W. WOODCOCK, MBA, FACMPE, CPC
Woodcock & Associates
Atlanta, GA

"Dr. McAslan's, Advancing Excellence in Healthcare Quality: 40 Strategies for Improving Patient Outcomes and Providing, Safe, High-Quality Healthcare is the essential checklist for improving quality of care, whether in the hospital or the ambulatory setting. She provides an easy-to-use structured approach to the most common quality issues faced by healthcare providers. It is an indispensable read for those starting a quality improvement program and for those who want to improve an existing quality program."

LAWRENCE SHAPIRO, MD
Formerly, Managed Care Director for the Palo Alto Medical
Foundation and Author, Quality Care, Affordable Care:
How Physicians Can Reduce Variation and Lower Healthcare Costs
Cupertino, CA

"Mary Sue McAslan has written a wonderfully practical book that is chock-full of helpful suggestions that healthcare professionals can put to work immediately. Focusing on patient-centered care, McAslan looks at optimizing outcomes, reducing readmissions, minimizing medical errors, and promoting prevention. This book is well-timed to help practitioners during a period of rapid change in healthcare. It dovetails beautifully with another cultural change for healthcare organizations: the growth of social media, which allows practitioners to extend their reach outside the confines of the office visit to improve healthcare and lower costs."

SUSAN M. GAY, MA
President, Infobrand
Author, Establishing, Managing and Protecting Your Online Reputation:
A Social Media Guide for Physicians and Medical Practices
Wayne, PA