Impact of participation in the California Healthcare-Associated Infection Prevention Initiative on adoption and implementation of evidence-based practices for patient safety and health care-associated infection rates in a cohort of acute care general hospitals.

Background: In 2008, hospitals were selected to participate in the California Healthcare-Associated Infection Prevention Initiative (CHAIPI). This research evaluates the impact of CHAIPI on hospital adoption and implementation of evidence-based patient safety practices and reduction of health care-associated infection (HAI) rates.

Methods: Statewide computer-assisted telephone surveys of California's general acute care hospitals were conducted in 2008 and 2010 (response rates, 80% and 76%, respectively).

Measures of surgical quality: what will patients know by 2005?

Rationale, Aims And Objectives: Many objective measures rating quality of doctors, hospitals, and medical groups are publicly reported. Surgical patients may have more opportunity to use quality measures than other types of patients to guide their choice of provider. If surgical patients are able to choose higher quality providers, overall surgical quality might increase.

Case study: development of and stakeholder responses to a nursing home consumer information system.

California Nursing Home Search (www.calnhs.org), launched in October 2002, provides information about nursing home quality to a broad range of stakeholders.

Designing a report card for nursing facilities: what information is needed and why.

Purpose: This article presents a rationale and conceptual framework for making comprehensive consumer information about nursing facilities available. Such information can meet the needs of various stakeholder groups, including consumers, family/friends, health professionals, providers, advocates, ombudsman, payers, and policy makers.

Design And Methods: The rationale and framework are based on a research literature review of key quality indicators for nursing facilities.

Federal and state nursing facility websites: just what the consumer needs?

Since the introduction of the Medicare Nursing Home Compare website in 1999, some states have begun to develop their own websites to help consumers compare nursing facilities (NFs). This article presents a brief conceptual framework for the type of information needed for an Internet-based information system and analyzes existing federal and state NF websites, using data collected from a survey completed in 2002. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have a variety of information on NFs, similar to the information on the Medicare website.