Quality Matters – Inova’s 2011/2012 Quality Report

(November 12, 2012) – First, do no harm – it’s a defining mandate for those who devote their lives to caring for others’ health. Recent studies have shown, however, that approximately 100,000 patients nationwide die unnecessarily in healthcare institutions. Several national organizations, including the Joint Commission, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Agency for Health Care Research in Quality (AHRQ) and the National Quality Forum, are a few that have responded by establishing standards of care and by giving healthcare organizations quality measurement tools.

At Inova, we have taken up the call to evaluate and improve our care at every level, using the best hospitals in the nation as our benchmarks. A component of this effort involves transparency with both internal and external stakeholders. This report is the first publication to share our progress with all members of the Inova community.

So, how did Inova do? Overall, we had a dramatic improvement in 2011 as compared to 2009 and 2010, and those improvements have continued in the first six months of 2012. We are continuing to accelerate our improvement by adopting nationally-accepted standardized best practices. This report will highlight those best practices, both in our quality results and in the success stories that follow.

One measure you will see in the following report is something we call “perfect care.” We use this term to indicate that a patient has received 100 percent of the steps in the process of care for a given condition. In other words, patients received the correct treatment and prophylaxis at the proper time and got the information and advice they needed to maintain and improve their health after discharge.  Consistent, high-quality care – “perfect care” – is what drives us at Inova.

I hope this report inspires each of us at Inova to achieve even higher levels of excellence throughout the rest of 2012 as we continue to deliver leading edge, best in class healthcare throughout the region.

Download Inova’s 20122/2012 Quality Report – “Quality Matters”

Sincerely yours,

Loring Flint, Chief Medical Officer
Inova Health System