Newsletter

September 14, 2020


Leadership Spotlight: ACHE, Along With IHI, AHRQ Announce National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety

The American College of Healthcare Executives today joins with members of the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety to announce the release of a National Action Plan to provide health systems with renewed momentum and clearer direction for eliminating preventable medical harm.

Safer Together: A National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety draws from evidence-based practices, widely known and effective interventions, exemplar case examples, and newer innovations. The plan is the work of 27 influential federal agencies, safety organizations and experts and patient and family advocates, first brought together in 2018 by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

The knowledge and recommendations in the National Action Plan center on four foundational areas deliberately chosen because of their widespread impact on safety across the continuum of care:

  1. Culture, Leadership and Governance: The imperative for leaders, governance bodies and policymakers to demonstrate and foster deeply held professional commitments to safety as a core value and promote the development of cultures of safety. 
  2. Patient and Family Engagement: The spread of authentic patient and family engagement; the practice of co-designing and co-producing care with patients, families and care partners to ensure their meaningful partnership in all aspects of care design, delivery and operations.
  3. Workforce Safety: The commitment to the safety and fortification of the healthcare workforce as a necessary precondition to advancing patient safety; the need to work toward a unified, total system perspective and approach to eliminate harm to both patients and the workforce.
  4. Learning System: The establishment of networked and continuous learning; forging learning systems within and across healthcare organizations at the local, regional and national levels to encourage widespread sharing, learning and improvement.

For ACHE resources on advancing patient safety, visit ache.org/Safety. There you will find Leading a Culture of Safety: A Blueprint for Success, which gives CEOs and senior leaders a tool to both assess and advance their organization’s culture of safety.

Leading Partnerships Across the Ecosystem 

Improving health outcomes, access and affordability is a complex challenge that requires collaboration and coordination across diverse sectors, including healthcare providers, payers, life science, public health and community resources. “Leading Partnerships Across the Ecosystem to Drive Value and Transform Health” will help leaders develop and demonstrate the mindset and skills needed to create and implement cross-sector solutions to improve access, optimize value-based payment models and promote healthier communities. Healthcare executives, community health leaders and clinical and nonclinical healthcare team members are encouraged to take this six-week online seminar, scheduled to take place Sept. 30–Nov. 11, and earn up to 6 ACHE Qualified Education credits. Register today. 

Envision Physician Services’ Leading COVID-19 Response Begins With Clinical Support

Envision Physician Services, which is part of Envision Healthcare, a leading national medical group, continues to be there for patients delivering care when and where it’s needed most. As the medical group remains on the frontlines of the nation’s fight against COVID-19, Envision is caring for patients, protecting and empowering its teams and supporting its healthcare system partners by:

  • Providing wellness resources for clinicians and clinical support teams. The group has established a peer crisis support program and holds regular support check-ins to provide healthy coping strategies for any stress, such as that brought on by COVID-19, as well as promote overall wellness.
  • Deploying telehealth platforms that enable clinicians to practice social distancing and preserve necessary personal protective equipment. Envision clinicians have cared for patients through more than 200,000 virtual health visits since the start of the COVID-19.
  • Rapidly mobilizing to meet the need for patient care. Envision has deployed or reassigned more than 500 physicians and advanced practice providers across medical sites and states as part of its nationwide efforts to combat COVID-19.
  • Treating COVID-19 patients across the nation. As of the summer, Envision clinicians have cared for at least 1 in 10 hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

To learn more about Envision’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its commitment to providing care to patients when and where it’s needed most, visit envisionhealth.net/coronavirus.

Envision, an ACHE Premier Corporate Partner, provided the content above.

Book: An Insider’s Guide to Working with Healthcare Consultants

Hiring a consulting firm can be a daunting prospect. With his dual perspective as a hospital CEO and a healthcare consultant, author Andrew C. Agwunobi, MD, is uniquely qualified to help hospital leaders become masters of the successful consulting engagement with his book An Insider’s Guide to Working with Healthcare Consultants. This Health Administration Press book will help healthcare executives in their work and interactions with healthcare consultants. To learn more, check out an excerpt from Chapter 1 or the table of contents. Order your copy today. 

IHF Virtual Forum: Learning From COVID-19, Transforming Health Services

COVID-19 has drastically affected health service delivery around the world to an extent unlike any before in such a short period of time. This situation calls for the health service community to support each other by sharing experiences, learning from each other and collectively brainstorming on solutions.

The International Hospital Federation will be conducting its first-ever virtual forum Nov. 4–5. “Learning From COVID-19, Transforming Health Services” will offer different perspectives from dealing with the crisis, address key questions on strategies for the new normal and explore how health services are transforming for the future. With IHF’s 44th World Hospital Congress postponed until 2021, this forum will still offer healthcare leaders an opportunity to interact with the international community.

Register today to take advantage of early bird registration rates: As members of IHF, ACHE registrants can avail themselves of a discounted IHF member rate until Sept. 30 by entering the access code IHFMBR during registration. More information about the forum is available here.

2020 Key Industry Facts Available Online

We are pleased to offer the 2020 edition of Key Industry Facts online. Prepared by ACHE’s Department of Executive Engagement, Research, Key Industry Facts provides annual updates on healthcare spending and other vital information. In previous years, it has appeared as an insert in Healthcare Executive magazine. This year, it is available only on HealthcareExecutive.org/KIF and ache.org. We hope you find it to be a valuable resource.