Quality and Safety
by Denise Walker | Jun 15, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
For decades, using electronic health records (EHRs) and exchanging health information has been viewed as essential for modernizing health care and improving patient care. The 2009 Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act provided...
by Denise Walker | Jun 5, 2012 | Discussion Paper, Perspectives
As leaders of health care organizations, we are acutely aware of the pressures that rising health care costs place on individuals, employers, and the government, as we are of unacceptable shortfalls in the quality and efficiency of care. But we have also learned,...
by Denise Walker | Jun 1, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
In the next 10 years, data and the ability to analyze them will do for doctors’ minds what X-ray and medical imaging have done for their vision. How? By turning data into actionable information. Take, for instance, IBM’s intelligent supercomputer, Watson. Watson can...
by Denise Walker | May 18, 2012 | Commentary, Perspectives
The Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) release of the reports To Err is Human and Crossing the Quality Chasm in 1999 and 2001, respectively, were markers of a tipping point in U.S. health care. Prior to that time, “quality” in health care had largely been defined by...
by Denise Walker | May 18, 2012 | Discussion Paper, Perspectives
In Canada, as elsewhere, the translation of health research outcomes to development of products and services for health care and final implementation in patients does not progress as rapidly, efficiently, or successfully as it should. In order to address this problem,...