Establishing a Multi-Institutional Quality and Patient Safety Consortium: Collaboration Across Affiliates in a Community-Based Medical School.

The landscape of health care delivery and medical education is evolving. Institutions must continually reassess priorities, strategies, and partnerships to align the knowledge and skills of the health care workforce with the delivery of quality, socially accountable, collaborative health care that meets the needs of diverse populations in communities. This article describes the development, implementation, and early outcomes of the University of Missouri-Kansas City's Health Care Quality and Patient Safety Consortium.

A Project-based Curriculum for Driving Organization-wide Continuous Improvement.

Background: Creating the capacity and capability for meaningful improvement in healthcare quality is a challenge many organizations face. Before 2012, Children's Mercy sponsored 20 leaders to obtain advanced improvement training from peer organizations. Recognizing an opportunity to build upon this momentum, we developed an organization-wide curriculum for teaching continuous improvement.

Developing a risk stratification model for predicting future health care use in asthmatic children.

Background: Previous studies have stratified pediatric asthma patients for risk of future exacerbation and/or health care use, but most incorporate multiple clinical parameters.

Objective: To determine whether historical acute care visits (ACVs) alone could predict risk of future health care use.

Methods: Children seen for asthma in an outpatient visit during a 3-year period were identified.

Comparison of patterns of allergen sensitization among inner-city Hispanic and African American children with asthma.

Background: Among Hispanics, the largest minority ethnic group in the United States, asthma prevalence is increasing, particularly in inner-city neighborhoods. Although allergen sensitization among asthmatic African Americans has been extensively studied, similar details are not available for Hispanic children.

Objectives: To examine patterns of allergen sensitization, including the association with illness severity, in asthmatic children overall and in Hispanic and African American children living in a socioeconomically disadvantaged area of New York City.

The yellow zone in asthma treatment: is it a gray zone?

Objective: To review the available literature on methods of preventing and minimizing exacerbations and to target problems for improvement.

Data Sources: PubMed and Cochrane Review searches of the English-language literature using the following key yellow zone terms: asthma exacerbation, self-management plans, inhaled corticosteroids, and acute management of asthma exacerbations.

Study Selection: Articles relevant to our yellow zone intervention inquiry.