This report seeks to bring together the evidence on shared decision making and self-management support, with the aim of providing greater coherence and clarity in debates about person-centred care.
http://kingsfund.blogs.com/health_management/2014/10/person-centred-care-from-ideas-to-action.html
This paper seeks to identify the skills, knowledge and behaviours required of new system leaders and to learn from systems attempting to combine strong organisational leadership with collaborative system-level leadership approaches. It draws on three years’ development work with leaders in health care systems in north-west England, undertaken by the Advancing Quality Alliance (AQuA) and The King’s Fund which has adopted a ‘discovery’ approach to developing integrated care and the leadership capabilities supporting it.
Everyone’s experience with an illness, disease, or diagnosis is unique. But when patients look to their caregivers for information and guidance, the common reply, “Well, it’s different for everyone,” can be disheartening. In a personal and moving new post to the IHI blog, Northeastern University senior and IHI Project Assistant Lilly Stairs tells her story of seeking help from the health care system while battling multiple autoimmune diseases.
She points out that although clinicians can’t have all the answers, but she asks them to provide some. “Repeatedly hearing ‘It’s different for everyone,’” she writes, “makes me feel anxious, uncertain, and ultimately frustrated.” She urges doctors to think deeply about how their words affect their patients, and argues that they should share the information that is available – from other patients, colleagues, credible information on the Internet, and the growing number of databases that collect patient-reported data.
Meeting the goals of the IHI Triple Aim – better care, better health, and lower per capita cost – requires new and innovative models of care delivery. It also requires a fundamental change in mindset – for everyone involved in providing care. A new essay published in the British Medical Journal authored by IHI President and CEO, Maureen Bisognano, and IHI Chief of Staff, Dan Schummers, argues that leaders and providers should take a cue from those working to improve education and “flip health care.” Inspired by both the “flipped classroom” model and by Susan Edgman-Levitan’s and Michael Barry’s provocation to ask patients, “What matters to you?” (in addition to “What’s the matter?”), Bisognano and Schummers describe pioneering examples of “flipped health care” that put control in the hands of patients, leverage the power of teamwork, and engage communities in promoting health.
(Accessible with NHS Athens)
This report details the findings of an investigation into the failings of the complaints system in health and social care. It raises concerns about the NHS and local authority red tape making it difficult for people to complain and that there is not enough independent advice and support out there to help those in need and, above all, the public is given little incentive to come forward about their experiences. It highlights simple changes which could be made to the system in order to improve patients’ experiences in complaints handling within health and care systems.
The ageing and growing population means that the NHS will require an additional 17,000 hospital beds in seven years unless improvements can be made to reduce the length of time for which patients are admitted, new analysis shows.
The briefing finds that hospital admissions grew by 2 million (16%) over the past seven years. If admissions continue to rise, population change alone will mean we need an additional 6.2 million ‘bed days’ (overnight stays) by 2022.
The analysis shows that rising admissions in the past have been managed through reductions in the length of time patients stay in hospital. To do this in the future will require excellent and coordinated care in the community.
Ways different companies have tried to ensure employees take the time they are owed and remain engaged with the organisation. Solutions include limiting access to work equipment, limiting out of hours use of email, paid holidays or set holidays and the daily removal of office furniture.
This paper shows that the geographic variation in health spending does not provide a useful way to examine the inefficiencies of our health system. States where Medicare spending is high are very different in multiple dimensions from states where Medicare spending is low, and thus it is difficult to isolate the effects of differences in health spending intensity from the effects of the differences in the underlying state characteristics. Ir shows, for example, that
previous findings about the relationships between health spending, the share of physicians who are general practitioners, and quality, are likely the result of omitted factors rather than the result of causal relationships.
The NHS featured heavily at all three major party conferences over the past few weeks. How could it not; despite a ring-fenced budget, it is increasingly showing signs of financial strain. But what has ‘ring-fenced’ meant in practice for the NHS? And what are the three main political parties’ promises, pledges and aspirations for NHS spending in future?
http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/blog/2014/10/nhs-funding-past-and-future
Building a winning strategy begins with recognizing that strategy is too important to be delegated to a strategy department. It can certainly be valuable to have the help of strategy officers or teams on refining and implementing strategy, but the strategy itself needs to be conceived and owned by the CEO (or equivalent for a division). Otherwise, strategy often becomes a diffuse product of group thinking and compromises among multiple stakeholders in the organization.
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/10/great-strategy-begins-with-a-ceo-on-the-frontlines/