Frontiers: A New Health System and Its Quality Agenda

Lead articles by Don E. Detmer, M.D.; Stephen Shortell, Ph.D., FACHE; Chip Caldwell, FACHE; Kenneth W. Kizer, M.D., M.P.H.

Softbound, 52 pp, Fall 2001, ISSN 0748-8157
Order code: WWW1-J468,
Price:$29.00

With the 1999 release To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), healthcare professionals realized redesigning the system of care within their healthcare organizations must take place. The follow-up report released in March 2001 further emphasized the need for change.

Lead Author Donald Detmer, chair of the IOM's Board of Health Care Services and a member of its committee on Quality of Health Care in America, identifies implications of the reports for healthcare delivery organizations and professionals. He also shares his expertise by outlining ways to improve the dimensions of patient quality defined by the IOM.

All three of the commentators strongly support the changes that need to take place in the healthcare system. Each expert provides unique insights into the types of changes that are needed and how they may be accomplished. Stephen M. Shortell, 1A6664 Cross of California Professor of Health Policy and Management and Organizational Behavior at the University of California, Berkeley, gathers his comments around three principles behind the Quality Chasm report. Chip Caldwell, president of the Institute for Accelerated Change, offers important advice for healthcare executives. Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, president and CEO of Veterans Administration healthcare system, voices his strong support of a quality improvement agenda for the U.S. healthcare system, while arguing that financial incentives will be necessary before quality changes will be pursued.