An overview of measurement activities in the partnership for patients.

The Partnership for Patients, launched in April 2011, is a national quality improvement initiative from the Department of Health and Human Services that has set ambitious goals for U.S. providers to improve patient safety and care transitions.

Eliminating waste in US health care.

The need is urgent to bring US health care costs into a sustainable range for both public and private payers. Commonly, programs to contain costs use cuts, such as reductions in payment levels, benefit structures, and eligibility. A less harmful strategy would reduce waste, not value-added care.

Evaluation of organizational culture among different levels of healthcare staff participating in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 100,000 Lives Campaign.

Background: Little is known about how hospital organizational and cultural factors associated with implementation of quality initiatives such as the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's (IHI) 100,000 Lives Campaign differ among levels of healthcare staff.

Design: Evaluation of a mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology ("trilogic evaluation model").

Setting: Six hospitals that joined the campaign before June 2006.

Racial and ethnic disparities in hospital care resulting from air pollution in excess of federal standards.

This study investigates racial and ethnic disparities in hospital admission and emergency room visit rates resulting from exposure to ozone and fine particulate matter levels in excess of federal standards ("excess attributable risk"). We generate zip code-level ambient pollution exposures and hospital event rates using state datasets, and use pollution impact estimates in the epidemiological literature to calculate excess attributable risk for racial/ethnic groups in California over 2005-2007. We find that black residents experienced roughly 2.

Temporal trends in rates of patient harm resulting from medical care.

Background: In the 10 years since publication of the Institute of Medicine's report To Err Is Human, extensive efforts have been undertaken to improve patient safety. The success of these efforts remains unclear.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of a stratified random sample of 10 hospitals in North Carolina.

Miles to go: an introduction to the 5 Million Lives Campaign.

Background: The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)'s 5 Million Lives Campaign targets a reduction of five million instances of harm from December 2006 through December 2008. The campaign continues the six interventions of the 100,000 Lives Campaign and adds six more.

Definition Of Medical Harm And Setting The Goal: The campaign's aim is to support the reduction of medical harm, so defined: "Unintended physical injury resulting from or contributed to by medical care (including the absence of indicated medical treatment), that requires additional monitoring, treatment, or hospitalization, or that results in death.