In January of 2007 the South Carolina Hospital Association (SCHA) established the
Quality and Safety Advisory Council to provide direction to the Association’s initiatives
related to patient safety and quality of care. South Carolina hospitals collaborated
so well on various initiatives to improve care that by September of 2007 they agreed
to place these activities under an official name which reflects their goals. The
name they selected is “Every Patient Counts: The SC Partnership to Advance Patient
Safety and Quality.” They also established the following vision and mission statements,
and a charter:
VISION:
That all South Carolina hospitals provide safe, high quality health care to
each patient every time.
MISSION:
To establish a culture of continuous improvement in safety and quality across
all hospitals statewide.
EVERY PATIENT COUNTS ADVISORY COUNCIL CHARTER:
This partnership will be led by an interdisciplinary team of administrative and
clinical leaders from member hospitals across the state that will provide strategic
guidance and direction to the SCHA Board and member hospitals in the areas of quality
improvement and safety. The primary focus of this Council will be to set the vision,
mission and strategic goals of this partnership, provide guidance for SCHA Board
and staff on the specific functions and activities related to the partnership, monitor
the impact and value of this partnering effort for member hospitals and the patients
they serve, and guide the development of strategic alliances with other key health
care system stakeholders in South Carolina.
One of the goals of the Every Patient Counts partnership is to institute a reliable
data reporting system for transparent dissemination of standardized, understandable
information on key quality and safety indicators. After careful review of various
programs, the Wisconsin Hospital Association’s “CheckPoint” platform was selected
for use in South Carolina under the name of “mySChospital.org.”
Mission of mySChospital
The mission of mySChospital is to develop consumer-focused initiatives that will provide reliable, valid measures of health care in South Carolina to aid the selection of quality
health care and quality improvement activities within the hospital field.
Purpose
mySChospital provides information to:
- Purchasers on the quality of care provided by hospitals
- Consumers to help them choose a hospital
- Hospitals for quality improvement
Guiding Principles of the Reporting System
The information in mySChospital should be:
- Composed of available, evidence-based measures
-
Comparable across similar hospitals ·
Capable of benchmarking
-
Available in a timely manner
-
Capable of instilling confidence in consumers through the ethical distribution of
reliable and valid data
-
Readily accessible to consumers for selection purposes
- Available to South Carolina hospitals for quality improvement activities
The system should be:
- Cost effective
-
Voluntary and non-punitive
Next Steps
The South Carolina Hospital Association through Every Patient Counts partnership
envisions
that the program will be:
- Recognized as a national leader and model
- The vehicle to implement complete information to meet many needs
- A stimulus for improvement in care
- The resource of choice for reliable, valid information
- An educational tool for the public
Additional quality measures and consumer focused educational information will be added to the MySCHhospital program over time. The SCHA and Every Patient Counts
partnership are interested in receiving input from purchasers, providers, consumers and other interested parties. If you have ideas that you would like to share with us on this program, please contact SCHA’s Aunyika Tocharoen Moonan, PhD, MSPH, CPHQ by email (amoonan@scha.org),
or call her at 803-796-3080.
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