By Tommy G. Thompson , HHS Secretary
The doctors, nurses and other health care professionals who work in our nation's hospitals are dedicated, conscientious people who work long hours under difficult circumstances. They are the unsung heroes of health care today, and deserve the public's support and gratitude for their unflagging efforts to make the best medical care in the world even better.
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The public values its caregivers. But it also wants to make sure that the quality of care at its hospitals is as good as it can be. Eliminating medical errors and enhancing patient safety is at the heart of the public's trust and confidence in what your hospital does. The more a community knows about its hospital, the greater will be its trust. And a major step toward strengthening the public's trust is to share information with your community about the quality of medical care your hospital provides.
We are living in the most amazing era of medicine in history. In the past century, average life expectancy for women in the United States increased by 30 years. We are performing prenatal surgery on unborn children and are producing cardio therapies that are sustaining and improving life for the elderly.
Yet, as we all know, all is not well with American medicine. We are dealing with a health care delivery system that is dysfunctional. The problem is neither with caregivers nor with the quality of care itself. To the contrary, America has the finest health care professionals and the finest caliber of medical treatment of any nation in history. The problem is that our health care delivery system has not matured at the same pace as the technologies and treatments now available. That is why we need to transform our health care delivery system.
In its 2001 report, "Crossing the Quality Chasm," the Institute of Medicine called upon the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to monitor health care providers' progress in improving care. We're following up on that recommendation. Beginning next fall, HHS will produce the "National Healthcare Quality Report" to track improvements in the overall quality of health care. However, this system will not be able to gauge the quality performance of individual hospitals or other providers.
Still, the public's demand for information about their hospitals' performance is prompting employers and others to take action. For example, some companies are developing report cards to assess the quality of hospital care. I am encouraged to see that employers and business groups have taken a keen interest in helping to improve the quality of care. But this approach may oversimplify the complex task of improving quality, and suggests that a one-size-fits-all solution will work for every hospital in any kind of community.
It leaves unanswered some key questions, like how to make sure the information provided to the public is accurate, comparable and meaningful, and conveys the changes that hospitals are making to improve their performance. Finding the answers is at the heart of a number of HHS' initiatives to enhance patient safety and improve the overall quality of health care. But only a truly collaborative effort will help us find the right answers. That's why I'm delighted that the AHA and other hospital groups are playing such an important role in bringing together HHS, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the National Quality Forum, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, and others on the issue of measuring and improving quality.
It is essential that we work collaboratively to get information to the public that is clear and accurate so that consumers can make better-informed choices about their care and so that their trust in their health care system can be restored. Otherwise, the public will be confused by conflicting and competing information.
The AHA should be commended for the steps it's taken so far to help its members improve care and patient safety. It keeps ideas and information on this topic flowing to hospitals and health systems across the country.
Many hospitals are coming up with exciting new ideas and approaches to measuring and improving the quality of care they provide. It's ingrained in their culture and it's the personal motivation of their caregivers. We can learn a lot from what's going on today in the hospital and health system field -- and we should pay more attention, because we cannot improve quality by imposing solutions from Washington. There is often no one right way, and if there were, Washington might be the last to know about it.
Improving the quality of care is a continual process and only a sustained approach will produce value. By working together as partners in this process, I am convinced that we can develop a common approach to assessing care that will lead to better health outcomes and help us meet our shared goal of ensuring patients receive the best care possible. And that would give the public another reason to thank its health care heroes.
Thompson is secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
