Chasing zero: can reality meet the rhetoric?

Objectives: Leaders from healthcare quality, purchasing, and certifying sectors convened at a national leadership meeting held September 8-9, 2008 in Washington, DC to address issues of Hospital-Acquired Infections (HAIs). This paper provides opinion interviews from leaders who spoke at a session entitled "The Quality Choir: A Call to Action For Hospital Executives" on whether zero HAIs should be the goal of our Hospitals.

Methods: The successes of many hospitals in dramatically reducing their infection rates were examined toward goals of "Chasing Zero" infections.

The chasing zero department: making idealized design a reality.

Objectives: Leaders representing healthcare quality, purchasing, and certifying sectors convened at a national leadership meeting to address the issue of Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAIs). A session entitled "The Quality Choir: A Call to Action For Hospital Executives" featured harmonization partner organizations for the National Quality Forum Safe Practices (SPs) for Better Healthcare-2009 Update. (NQF SPs) The objective of the meeting was to determine if zero HAIs should be the improvement target for hospitals and what a Chasing Zero Department (CZD) should be like.

Five system barriers to achieving ultrasafe health care.

Although debate continues over estimates of the amount of preventable medical harm that occurs in health care, there seems to be a consensus that health care is not as safe and reliable as it might be. It is often assumed that copying and adapting the success stories of nonmedical industries, such as civil aviation and nuclear power, will make medicine as safe as these industries. However, the solution is not that simple.

Would the NHS benefit from a single, identifiable leader? An email conversation.

Would an identifiable leader of the NHS solve all of its problems alone or overnight—or is that magical thinking?

Pursuing perfection: an interview with Don Berwick and Michael Rothman. Interview by Andrea Kabcenell and Jane Roessner.

Don Berwick and Michael Rothman discuss the Pursuing Perfection initiative, which is intended to help health care organizations integrate improvement work into day-to-day life, with systemwide changes in infrastructure, project management, care, and leadership.

Redesigning cancer care.

Patients with cancer in the UK suffer more delays and worse survival than those in many other European states. The national cancer plan has set ambitious targets for improved care. The cancer services collaborative is using improvement methods to reduce delays and improve the service for patients.