Leaders in Hospital Care Form New Collaborative to Address Pressing Issues for Patient Care
Hospital Care Collaborative's New Principles Emphasize Teamwork, Accountability
9/9/2009
In the birthplace of America’s first hospital, the nation’s leaders in hospital care have come together to improve care for hospital patients by changing the system of care.
Six national organizations, which together represent hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals, have formed the Hospital Care Collaborative (HCC) and are working together to address the most pressing needs in hospital care. The HCC is composed of:
- American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN),
- American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC),
- American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP),
- Case Management Society of America (CMSA),
- Society for Social Work Leadership in Health Care (SSWLHC), and
- Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM)
“Healthcare providers must learn to work more closely together to ultimately provide not only safer care to the patient, but also more affordable, efficient, and effective care,” said ASHP CEO and Executive Vice President Henri R. Manasse, Jr., Ph.D., Sc.D. “This Collaborative is designed to effect real and lasting improvements in how patients are cared for in hospitals.”
HCC’s Common Principles for Healthcare
As part of the launch of the HCC, the group is publishing its Common Principles for Team-Based Healthcare, 13 guiding principles for delivering team-based care in the hospital, which represent the consensus of the HCC members. The new principles, available at www.ashp.org emphasize the need for collaboration, a focus on patient centered care, accountability and information sharing. They also recognize systemic issues in hospital care, such as gaps in healthcare education and the pressing need for hospital culture to better promote teamwork. The final principle states, “The HCC recognizes that today’s hospital cultures do not foster true teams of healthcare professionals. The HCC calls on all stakeholders (e.g. payers, providers, administrators, patients) to work together to create a new hospital culture that nurtures and rewards high performing teams.” HCC’s Next Steps in Improving Hospital Care Using its members and Common Principles as the foundation for its work, the HCC is engaging in new activities designed to systematically improve care for hospital patients, including: - Identifying and promoting best practices in multidisciplinary teamwork;
- Promoting continued and expanded collaboration among the HCC organizations to develop and implement strategies for teamwork among health professionals;
- Developing methods and tools for teams in hospitals to perform a Self Assessment of Compliance with the Common Principles;
- Developing and promoting education programs, specifically for interdisciplinary teams; and
- Promoting the Collective Accountability by Measurement of Team Performance. The HCC believes that the best measurement of team performance is at the team level (rather than individual health professional).
“It's essential that care providers in every role fully collaborate so that hospital patients get the best care possible,” said Manasse. “Pharmacists in hospitals and health systems are eager to improve medication use and patient care in collaboration with all members of the patient care team.”
ABOUT ASHP For more than 60 years, ASHP has helped pharmacists who practice in hospitals and health systems improve medication use and enhance patient safety. The Society's 30,000 members include pharmacists and pharmacy technicians who practice in inpatient, outpatient, home-care, and long-term-care settings, as well as pharmacy students. For more information about the wide array of ASHP activities and the many ways in which pharmacists help people make the best use of medicines, visit ASHP's Web site, www.ashp.org, or its consumer Web site, www.SafeMedication.com. -END-
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