Fourteen Oregon hospitals participated in a national program to improve the quality and safety of care for patients. The program is part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Aligning Forces for Quality, which also supports Partner for Quality Care.

OREGON HOSPITALS IMPROVE CARE FOR PATIENTS
AS PART OF NATIONAL PROGRAM ON QUALITY AND SAFETY

Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation and Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems
announce findings from state hospitals' participation in Aligning Forces for Quality

PORTLAND, ORE. (July 31, 2012) - Fourteen local hospitals are being lauded today by the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation and the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems for their part in a prestigious national program to improve the quality and safety of patient care. These participating Oregon hospitals joined in a virtual network where they developed, shared, and implemented quality improvement tools and strategies. The effort is part of Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q), a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to significantly improve health care in targeted communities.

For 18 months, more than 100 hospitals nationwide worked together through AF4Q on this program. During this time, 90 percent of the participating hospital teams improved the quality of care for their patients in measureable ways, resulting in hundreds of avoided hospital readmissions; improved patient safety; standardized collection of information on patients' race, ethnicity and language preference (R/E/L); and reduced wait times in hospital emergency departments (EDs).

The Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (OAHHS) managed the local hospital effort, bringing together 14 teams to spearhead initiatives to help tackle key issues in hospital care. The overall AF4Q effort in Oregon is led by the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation.

"Oregon hospitals work daily to provide the best care possible for the patients they serve, particularly in reducing readmissions, improving language services, and addressing patient flow through the emergency department," said Diane Waldo, OAHHS director of quality and clinical services. "Hospital commitment to quality processes and outcomes is evident in the results from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Aligning Forces for Quality program. Hospitals continue to demonstrate that consistent care processes indeed result in improved clinical outcomes."

"We are delighted to have had the opportunity to work with 14 local hospitals and our partners at the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems on this successful Aligning Forces for Quality initiative," said Mylia Christensen, executive director of the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation. "The impressive results for Oregon hospitals participating in this program highlight the importance of collaboration in efforts to improve the quality and safety of care."

Results for Oregon hospitals participating in the program include:

Reducing hospital readmissions and increasing adherence to care standards.
National data show about one in four Medicare patients admitted to the hospital for chronic diseases return to the hospital within 30 days of being discharged. Hospitals participating in AF4Q worked to ensure that processes were followed and patients had all the information they needed to safely transition from the hospital setting. Results for Oregon hospitals include:
• Six Oregon hospitals reduced their readmissions rate during the collaborative, avoiding about 31 readmissions within 30 days of hospital discharge during the 18-month time period.
• Among participating Oregon hospitals, the average 30-day readmission rate was lower than the national and state average throughout the entire collaborative.

Improving language services for patients who speak or understand a language other than English.
All hospitals in the U.S. that accept government funds are required to provide interpreter services to patients who speak a language other than English, but there has been little guidance to hospitals on the most effective, efficient ways to implement these requirements. Hospitals participating in AF4Q worked to improve the efficiency of language services. Results for Oregon hospitals include:
• All four Oregon hospitals that participated in the improving language services component of the program demonstrated improvement in screening patients for their preferred spoken language for health care.
• Three of the Oregon hospitals also demonstrated improvement in ensuring that limited English-proficient patients had a qualified interpreter at initial assessment and discharge, with one hospital demonstrating a 65 percent improvement over the duration of the program.

Reducing emergency department crowding.
Crowding and poor patient flow impact quality and safety and cause patients to remain in the ED longer than necessary. Local hospitals participating in AF4Q worked systematically to improve ED efficiency. Results for Oregon hospitals include:
• Over the 18 months of the program, participating Oregon hospitals consistently outperformed participating hospitals from other communities on all measures of performance for reducing ED crowding.
• Three of the five Oregon hospitals participating in the reducing ED crowding component of the program were able to demonstrate modest improvements over the 18 months.

"We know that even though many hospitals consistently deliver good care, there’s always room for improvement," said Susan Mende, BSN, MPH, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "Aligning Forces for Quality has shown that hospitals in Oregon and around the country want to do better and are willing to take steps needed to deliver the best care possible to their patients."

The 14 Oregon hospitals that participated in the program include:

Ashland Community Hospital
Bay Area Hospital
Lake District Hospital
Mid-Columbia Medical Center
Oregon Health & Science University
Pioneer Memorial Hospital
Rogue Valley Medical Center
Samaritan Albany General Hospital
St. Charles Bend Medical Center
St. Charles Redmond Medical Center
Sky Lakes Medical Center
Silverton Hospital
Tuality Community Hospital
Willamette Valley Medical Center

Funded by RWJF, AF4Q is an unprecedented effort to improve quality of care in communities nationwide and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Oregon is one of 16 communities selected by RWJF to participate in AF4Q. To learn more, visit www.Q-corp.org and www.forces4quality.org.

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About Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation: Founded in 2000, the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the quality and affordability of health care in Oregon by leading community collaborations and producing unbiased information. We work with the members of our community – including consumers, providers, employers, policymakers and health insurers – to improve the health of all Oregonians. For more information, visit www.Q-Corp.org.

About Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems: Founded in 1934, the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems (OAHHS) is a statewide, nonprofit trade association that works closely with local and national government leaders, business and citizen coalitions, and other professional health care organizations to enhance and promote community health and to continue improving Oregon's innovative health care industry. OAHHS represents the 58 acute care hospitals in Oregon and three specialty hospitals. For more information regarding the quality initiatives of Oregon’s community hospitals go online to www.hospitals4health.org.

A new report from the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation, the nonprofit that manages Partner for Quality Care, finds that one in six emergency department visits for children in Oregon is preventable. Eliminating preventable ED visits for both children and adults in Oregon could save $26 million every year.

The report, called Information for a Healthy Oregon, is available on the Quality Corp website. The report also includes information on care for chronic conditions, women's preventive care, pediatric care, and the appropriate use of health care resources.

For some conditions, like low back pain, research suggests that the best care is usually a less expensive option. A joint project of the American College of Physicians and Consumer Reports is helping to raise awareness of this issue and the harms associated with too much unnecessary care. The project, called High Value Care, includes information for people with low back pain and diabetes.

Visit ConsumerReports.org for more information and to watch a video that discusses why people with low back pain should avoid imaging tests that they don't need.

Mail Tribune on Sunday featured our low back pain campaign. The article discusses how staying active can help people with low back pain feel better and avoid unnecessary health care services.

Get back in action
Guidelines say to keep moving when you experience lower back pain
March 04, 2012
By Bill Kettler

We humans are fragile creatures, and no part of our anatomy bespeaks our frailty quite like the lower back.

The neighborhood where spine and pelvis meet is a marvelously complex arrangement of bone, nerve, muscle and connective tissue that holds us upright, yet provides a remarkable range of motion and flexibility. So it's no wonder that things go wrong sometimes when we bend over to tie our shoes or pick up a bag of trash. Lucky and rare are those folks who haven't felt the jolt of searing pain that announces an episode of low-back pain.

The natural response when your back "goes out" is to lie down and wait for the pain to go away. It turns out that course is exactly the wrong one for most of us. New guidelines for treating low-back pain encourage people to stay active to promote healing, avoid expensive imaging tests and use ordinary over-the-counter medicines to control pain while they're on the mend.

Back pain is one of the most common complaints physicians treat - right up there with sore throats, says Dr. Paul Matz, a family practice physician at Medford Medical Clinic. Unfortunately, Matz says, there's not a whole lot of evidence that aggressive medical treatments hasten healing for most people.

"Ninety percent of people get better with time," he says, but studies show little difference in recovery rates among those who seek chiropractic care or physical therapy compared with those who do nothing special.

The new guidelines were developed by a partnership led by Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation (often shortened to Q Corp), a nonprofit organization that seeks to improve health care by producing unbiased information. The guidelines were developed "to help people get the right care when they need it," says Mylia Christensen, Q Corp's executive director.

The goal is to help people manage low-back pain without having to undergo tests and treatments that may not benefit them and that have the potential to do harm, Christensen says. Q Corp will produce additional treatment guidelines as part of the health reform plan created by the Oregon Health Policy Board under the provisions of the Legislature's 2009 health care reform law.

Read the full article at the Mail Tribune website.