True North Newsletter
Monthly highlights of our improvement activities
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What is "True North" and why is it important? Please read
here
to learn more.
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Please review our
current
True North scorecard that
continues to serve as one lens into our organizational priorities and performance. This month's communication focuses on our care transitions program and value improvement initiatives.
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What have we learned about our sustained improvements in readmissions?
Despite the controversy around readmissions as a quality measure, we continue to view readmissions as an opportunity to improve quality, access, and timeliness of care for our patients. Over the past 4 years, we’ve seen steady improvements in our 30d readmission rates from ~12% to our current FYTD of 10.7%; this might project to ~450 less patients being readmitted compared to last year. Most of our improvements are attributed to: 1) interventions that touch all patients (e.g., improvements in after-visit summaries and timeliness of discharge summaries completed), 2)
standout improvements from a number of specific services (e.g., CT surgery, General Surgery, Hospital Medicine, Newborn Nursery, Peds Specialties),
and 3) targeted interventions for specific patient populations (e.g., Medicare patients, COPD). However, as the visual below highlights, we are also trying to address noted healthcare disparities among our readmitted patients as well. An
overview
of our care transitions work was presented by
Michelle Mourad
at the Quality Improvement Executive Committee this month.
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How are we doing with our Value Improvement Initiatives this year?
Our Value Improvement (VI) Initiatives were a new effort in 2017-18 that identified strategic opportunities to reinvest into the organization. The key change to this year’s program included moving from the ~200 initiatives from last year to ~30 this year to better focus our attention; they continue to address our True North priorities. As the figure below highlights, the initiatives and their financial goals fall into several categories, such as optimizing our revenue capture and enhancing key clinical programs to better address the needs of our patient populations. Whereas our FY18 VI initiatives were successful from a programmatic and financial perspective, the current year’s performance is forecasting a shortfall, reflective of the overall organization’s financial health. However, a number of our faculty are leading clinical program improvements that are impressive. An
overview
of the VI program was presented by Amy Shlossman at the Quality Improvement Executive Committee this month.
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UCSF Health Lean Champions Recognized
Please join us in congratulating
Kirsten Fleischmann
(Cardiology),
Iris Otani
(Allergy/Immunology), and
Rachel Wattier
(Pediatric ID) as our newest Learning Health System (LHS) Coaches who have completed UCSF Health's most intensive Lean training program. These physician leaders are now prepared to co-lead training workshops with our teams and trainees; they're also leading the way in role modeling how to support and coach improvement efforts. If you have questions about the program, please contact
Lei Choi
, our Medical Director for Lean and Continuous Improvement.
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GME Quality Improvement Incentive Program
The Office of Graduate Medical Education and UCSF Medical Center announced the launch of the 2019-20
Resident and Fellow Quality Improvement Incentive Program.
This innovative program allows our trainees to select program-specific improvement projects and work with faculty and interprofessional teams to achieve their goals. There are more than 30 programs participating this year, working on a diversity of
selected improvement projects
. The deadline for proposals is April 30th and we look forward to another collection of meaningful efforts led by our trainees to improve patient care. If you have questions about the program, please contact
Glenn Rosenbluth
, our Director for GME Quality & Safety.
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Schwartz Rounds
This month's Schwartz Rounds will take place on April 23rd, 12-1 p.m. at Parnassus, N-225, and will feature
"
When We Become the Patient: Personalization of Healthcare"
;
as with other Schwartz Rounds, the goal is to foster an open discussion about the emotional impact of caring for patients. Please see the
flyer
for additional details.
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4th Annual UCSF Health Improvement Poster Symposium
Call for Poster Submissions:
Share Your Improvement Work!
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Thursday, May 30th from 4-7p at Mission Bay Conference Center
Electronic Poster Submission Due on May 16th
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Looking for information from a past True North Newsletter? Please access them
here.
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