Improving Quality for Every Patient: A Q&A with Tom Sequist, MD, MPH

A. We are here to improve survival and relieve suffering for our patients — that is at the heart of our mission as a healthcare organization. Our quality goal, which is guided by our For Every Patient strategy and the work to measure and improve our performance, is in support of this fundamental objective: to care for patients. We all have a stake in this effort — from our frontline clinicians caring for patients at our hospitals and ambulatory sites to colleagues in critical support roles such as our Digital, Materials Management or Environmental Services teams. All of us, across every department and role, must be connected in pursuit of our shared goal.

Q. What programs and initiatives are underway to support this goal?

A. For Every Patient is our unified quality strategy for delivering safe, highly effective and personalized care, rooted in equity. To advance this critical work, we are transforming into a high reliability organization (HRO), creating a culture where everyone is accountable for quality. As an HRO, we will enhance our ability to identify risk and find proactive ways to better manage risk by building resilient systems and supporting our people with the tools they need to achieve our system goals. We will effectively review improvement approaches through a coordinated, collaborative and inclusive process, and ensure all clinicians and staff feel comfortable speaking up if they spot a potential quality issue.

We have begun focused HRO training that will be spread systemwide over the next year and build on the progress we’ve already made in unifying patient safety protocols and implementing a single reporting structure for serious reportable events. We also are using data to inform rigorous process improvement. As part of For Every Patient, we have developed consistent quality metrics and benchmarks to measure our performance, with a focus on mortality, health equity, patient safety, patient experience and efficiency.