Register Online Today. Registration rate increases after January 31. Please forward widely.
Global Health and Innovation Summit
A Conference Presented Annually by Unite For Sight
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Saturday, April 18 - Sunday, April 19, 2009
Conference Website Features the Conference Schedule Online
"A Meeting of Minds," --CNN
200 Speakers, Including Keynote Addresses by Dr. Susan Blumenthal, Nicholas Kristof, Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, Dr. Sonia Sachs, Dr. Al Sommer, and Dr. Harold Varmus. Plus social innovation sessions by CEOs and Directors of Save The Children, Partners in Health, HealthStore Foundation, mothers2mothers, and many others.
What? Join 2,500 people from all 50 states and from more than 60 countries for an innovative, high-impact idea incubator.
Who should attend? Students, professionals, educators, doctors, scientists, lawyers, universities, corporations, nonprofits, and others. Anyone interested in international health and development, public health, eye care, medicine, social entrepreneurship, nonprofits, philanthropy, microfinance, human rights, anthropology, health policy, advocacy, public service, environmental health, and education.
Confirmed Keynote Speakers
"Global Health Challenges and Opportunities," Susan Blumenthal, MD, MPA, Former US Assistant Surgeon General, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown School of Medicine and Tufts University Medical Center; Senior Medical Advisor, amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS Research; Chair, Global Health Program, Meridian International Center
"The Challenges of Development and Making Aid Work," Nicholas Kristof, Columnist, The New York Times
Jeffrey Sachs, PhD, Director of Earth Institute at Columbia University; Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, Columbia University; Special Advisor to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon
"Millennium Villages: Update," Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, MD, MPH, Health Coordinator, Millennium Village Project
"Preventing Blindness; Saving Lives," Al Sommer, MD, MHS, Professor and Dean Emeritus, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
"New Perspectives on Global Health and Science," Harold Varmus, MD, President and Chief Executive, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Former Director of the NIH; Nobel Prize Recipient
Confirmed Leaders of Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship Speakers
"Social Entrepreneurship as a Tool to Strengthen Health Systems,"Leah Barrett, MPA, Program Officer, VillageReach
"Unite For Sight: Social Entrepreneurship As A Symbol of Hope for the (Poor) Blind Villagers and Refugees in Ghana," James Clarke, MD, Ophthalmologist and Medical Director, Crystal Eye Clinic, Ghana
"Strategic Social Entrepreneurship as a Tool for Advancing Global Health," Greg Dees, PhD, Professor of the Practice of Social Entrepreneurship and co-founder of the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship, Duke University's Fuqua School of Business
"The Power of Public/Private "Hybrids," Gene Falk, Co-Founder, Executive Directors, mothers2mothers
"The HealthStore Foundation: Improving Access to Life-Saving Medicines through Micro-Franchising," Scott Hillstrom, Chairman of the Board, CEO and Co-Founder, HealthStore Foundation
"The Impact of the Food and Nutrition Crisis on the Global Health Agenda," Charles MacCormack, PhD, President and CEO, Save The Children
"Health Care From The Grassroots," Joia Mukherjee, MD, MPH, Medical Director, Partners in Health; Director, Institute for Health and Social Justice; Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School; Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities, Brigham and Women's Hospital
"'Patient' Capital for Global Health," Ajay Nair, MBBS MPH, Portfolio Associate, Acumen Fund
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
2009 Healthcare Organizational Research Association (HORA) Meeting
The Eleventh Annual Health Organizational Research Association Conference will take place on June 4 and 5, 2009. The conference will be held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). It is being co-hosted by the UNC, Duke University, the Research Triangle Institute, and Durham VA Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care.
Attendance will be limited to the first 50 registrants and will be limited to faculty and health services researchers. The attendance limitation facilitates enhanced participation in the workshop’s discussion format and networking at dinners and receptions.
To register or submit an abstract, please contact Daniel Lee at sylee@email.unc.edu.
A reminder regarding financial arrangements: all participants are responsible for their own travel and hotel arrangements. The conference covers conference facility and refreshment costs, meals on Thursday, and breakfast on Friday.
Attendance will be limited to the first 50 registrants and will be limited to faculty and health services researchers. The attendance limitation facilitates enhanced participation in the workshop’s discussion format and networking at dinners and receptions.
To register or submit an abstract, please contact Daniel Lee at sylee@email.unc.edu.
A reminder regarding financial arrangements: all participants are responsible for their own travel and hotel arrangements. The conference covers conference facility and refreshment costs, meals on Thursday, and breakfast on Friday.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Year in Research: The Results Are In
Last month, we posted about the opportunity offered by RWJF's Vice President of Research and Evaluation, David Colby, to help him select the 10 most influential RWJF-funded research articles.
The results are in!
Check out this note from David, along with the link to the selected articles.
***
Dear Colleague:
For the past few years, I have chosen a list of the 10 most influential RWJF-funded research articles, the RWJF Year in Research. This year, we wanted to know what you think. I produced a list, as usual, but last month, we also asked our Web site visitors, Twitter followers and e-mail subscribers to choose from a list of 25 nominees. The response was wonderful. More than 1,400 people cast votes. Voters hailed from 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The largest percentage of voters was from California (14%); followed by Massachusetts (6.4%); and New York (6.3%). Thirty-eight percent were academics.
Nationally, there was an emphasis on obesity research. Given the projections of the impact of this epidemic on the health of Americans and the rising cost of health care, these were not surprising choices. Interestingly, our audience based in Washington, D.C., highly regarded research on health and public health reform.
Review the results of the voting and my choices.
Thanks to everyone for your participation.
David C. Colby
Vice President, Research & Evaluation
The results are in!
Check out this note from David, along with the link to the selected articles.
***
Dear Colleague:
For the past few years, I have chosen a list of the 10 most influential RWJF-funded research articles, the RWJF Year in Research. This year, we wanted to know what you think. I produced a list, as usual, but last month, we also asked our Web site visitors, Twitter followers and e-mail subscribers to choose from a list of 25 nominees. The response was wonderful. More than 1,400 people cast votes. Voters hailed from 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The largest percentage of voters was from California (14%); followed by Massachusetts (6.4%); and New York (6.3%). Thirty-eight percent were academics.
Nationally, there was an emphasis on obesity research. Given the projections of the impact of this epidemic on the health of Americans and the rising cost of health care, these were not surprising choices. Interestingly, our audience based in Washington, D.C., highly regarded research on health and public health reform.
Review the results of the voting and my choices.
Thanks to everyone for your participation.
David C. Colby
Vice President, Research & Evaluation
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Study Finds Failure to Include Nurses in Process of Admitting Errors to Patients, Families
Need for team approach to disclosing medical mistakes shown
OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill., Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Even though nurses routinely disclose nursing errors to their patients, a new study published in the January 2009 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety shows that nurses often are not included when physicians tell patients about more serious mistakes.
Nurses play such a hands-on role at the bedside of their patients that the study's authors conclude that the absence of nurses from discussions to plan for or disclose errors can diminish the quality of the disclosure experienced by the patient or their family. For example, when nurses are not involved in the planning for disclosure, they may seem evasive in answering patients' questions or stall by encouraging families to write down their questions or set up a meeting with doctors. The study, "Disclosing Errors to Patients: Perspectives of Registered Nurses," systematically explores nurses' attitudes toward and experiences with error disclosure to patients.
"Improving the quality of error disclosure to patients is a top priority in health care," says Sarah E. Shannon, Ph.D., R.N., vice associate dean for academic services in the University of Washington School of Nursing, associate professor of behavioral nursing and health systems at the University of Washington, and lead author of the study. "Error disclosure needs to be a team sport. This means quickly sharing information among the team about the error: what happened, why it occurred, what is being done to mitigate potential harm and prevent future errors, and what the patient has been told, will be told, and when."
The study of nearly 100 nurses reports that nurses say they talk with patients about errors that are within their control, such as late or missed medications or treatments. But nurses in the study said they hesitate to independently disclose errors that involved serious harm or actions of other members of the health care team. In these situations, the nurses said the responsibility fell to the patient's attending physician. The nurses said, however, that they would like a role in the disclosure process as a way to both communicate directly with the patient about nursing's role in the event and to avoid being blamed for the event. The study also found low awareness of institutional disclosure policies.
The study's authors -- three nurses and one physician -- conclude that a team disclosure process is best and recommend that health care organizations establish policies that permit nurses and other caregivers to participate in and raise concerns about the disclosure process. The authors point out that a lack of collaboration and communication in the disclosure process may lead to moral distress, increased job dissatisfaction and job turnover among nurses. In addition, the authors suggest that nurse managers should receive training on how to tell patients and families that a mistake has occurred.
This study was supported by the Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, published monthly by Joint Commission Resources (JCR), features peer-reviewed research and case studies on improving quality and safety in health care organizations. Click here to order this article in the January 2009 issue. To subscribe to The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, please call JCR Customer Service toll-free at 800-746-6578, or visit www.jcrinc.com.
Note: No statement in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety should be construed as an official position of The Joint Commission or Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR) unless otherwise stated. In particular, there has been no official review with regard to matters of standards compliance.
Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR), a not-for-profit affiliate of The Joint Commission, has been designated by The Joint Commission to publish publications and multimedia products. JCR reproduces and distributes these materials under license from The Joint Commission. JCR educational programs and publications support the accreditation activities of The Joint Commission, but are separate functions. Attendees at JCR educational programs and purchasers of JCR publications receive no special consideration or treatment in, or confidential information about, the accreditation process. Learn more about Joint Commission Resources at www.jcrinc.com.
OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill., Jan. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Even though nurses routinely disclose nursing errors to their patients, a new study published in the January 2009 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety shows that nurses often are not included when physicians tell patients about more serious mistakes.
Nurses play such a hands-on role at the bedside of their patients that the study's authors conclude that the absence of nurses from discussions to plan for or disclose errors can diminish the quality of the disclosure experienced by the patient or their family. For example, when nurses are not involved in the planning for disclosure, they may seem evasive in answering patients' questions or stall by encouraging families to write down their questions or set up a meeting with doctors. The study, "Disclosing Errors to Patients: Perspectives of Registered Nurses," systematically explores nurses' attitudes toward and experiences with error disclosure to patients.
"Improving the quality of error disclosure to patients is a top priority in health care," says Sarah E. Shannon, Ph.D., R.N., vice associate dean for academic services in the University of Washington School of Nursing, associate professor of behavioral nursing and health systems at the University of Washington, and lead author of the study. "Error disclosure needs to be a team sport. This means quickly sharing information among the team about the error: what happened, why it occurred, what is being done to mitigate potential harm and prevent future errors, and what the patient has been told, will be told, and when."
The study of nearly 100 nurses reports that nurses say they talk with patients about errors that are within their control, such as late or missed medications or treatments. But nurses in the study said they hesitate to independently disclose errors that involved serious harm or actions of other members of the health care team. In these situations, the nurses said the responsibility fell to the patient's attending physician. The nurses said, however, that they would like a role in the disclosure process as a way to both communicate directly with the patient about nursing's role in the event and to avoid being blamed for the event. The study also found low awareness of institutional disclosure policies.
The study's authors -- three nurses and one physician -- conclude that a team disclosure process is best and recommend that health care organizations establish policies that permit nurses and other caregivers to participate in and raise concerns about the disclosure process. The authors point out that a lack of collaboration and communication in the disclosure process may lead to moral distress, increased job dissatisfaction and job turnover among nurses. In addition, the authors suggest that nurse managers should receive training on how to tell patients and families that a mistake has occurred.
This study was supported by the Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, published monthly by Joint Commission Resources (JCR), features peer-reviewed research and case studies on improving quality and safety in health care organizations. Click here to order this article in the January 2009 issue. To subscribe to The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, please call JCR Customer Service toll-free at 800-746-6578, or visit www.jcrinc.com.
Note: No statement in The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety should be construed as an official position of The Joint Commission or Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR) unless otherwise stated. In particular, there has been no official review with regard to matters of standards compliance.
Joint Commission Resources, Inc. (JCR), a not-for-profit affiliate of The Joint Commission, has been designated by The Joint Commission to publish publications and multimedia products. JCR reproduces and distributes these materials under license from The Joint Commission. JCR educational programs and publications support the accreditation activities of The Joint Commission, but are separate functions. Attendees at JCR educational programs and purchasers of JCR publications receive no special consideration or treatment in, or confidential information about, the accreditation process. Learn more about Joint Commission Resources at www.jcrinc.com.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
The Commonwealth Fund Launches a New Health Care Quality Improvement Resource: WhyNotTheBest.org
The Commonwealth Fund has launched a new Web site, WhyNotTheBest.org, that allows health care providers, researchers, and professionals to easily conduct side-by-side comparisons of 4,500 hospitals nationwide, track performance over time against numerous benchmarks, and download tools to improve health care quality.
WhyNotTheBest.org allows you to:
- Find the top-performing hospitals in the country on 24 nationally recognized measures of health care quality, including care provided for heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia, and prevention of surgical infection
- Compare a hospital against its peers
- Learn how to improve the quality of care delivery and patient satisfaction.
On the Web site, users can search publicly reported Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services performance data by a number of hospital characteristics--including region, ownership, and size--and measure performance against top performers and state and national averages.
WhyNotTheBest.org provides more than data. Case studies of high-performing hospitals and a library of tools offer lessons and strategies on ways to improve care. Featured tools include materials created by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the American Heart Association, and top hospitals around the country.
"There are many report cards that measure quality of care, but WhyNotTheBest.org is unique in that it allows providers to benchmark performance against leaders and track improvements, and it provides credible tools to help providers achieve better performance," said Anne-Marie Audet, M.D., Vice President, Quality Improvement and Efficiency, at The Commonwealth Fund.
All information, including tools, can be saved to a "My Profile" page for later use. Over time, new measure sets and functionality, such as an Improvement Calculator to track progress toward benchmarks, will be added. IPRO, a not-for-profit health care evaluation and quality improvement organization, conducted all data analysis and Web development for the site.
"In five minutes, I was able to compare my own hospital's performance on dozens of measures to those of other large teaching hospitals, to best performers in California, and to national performance leaders, using WhyNotTheBest.org," said Robert Wachter, M.D., Associate Chairman of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, Department of Medicine. "I was also able to trend our performance over time and read how innovators solved their own quality problems. WhyNotTheBest.org represents the marriage of health care transparency and modern Web technologies, and the results are thrilling."
WhyNotTheBest.org allows you to:
- Find the top-performing hospitals in the country on 24 nationally recognized measures of health care quality, including care provided for heart attack, heart failure, and pneumonia, and prevention of surgical infection
- Compare a hospital against its peers
- Learn how to improve the quality of care delivery and patient satisfaction.
On the Web site, users can search publicly reported Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services performance data by a number of hospital characteristics--including region, ownership, and size--and measure performance against top performers and state and national averages.
WhyNotTheBest.org provides more than data. Case studies of high-performing hospitals and a library of tools offer lessons and strategies on ways to improve care. Featured tools include materials created by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the American Heart Association, and top hospitals around the country.
"There are many report cards that measure quality of care, but WhyNotTheBest.org is unique in that it allows providers to benchmark performance against leaders and track improvements, and it provides credible tools to help providers achieve better performance," said Anne-Marie Audet, M.D., Vice President, Quality Improvement and Efficiency, at The Commonwealth Fund.
All information, including tools, can be saved to a "My Profile" page for later use. Over time, new measure sets and functionality, such as an Improvement Calculator to track progress toward benchmarks, will be added. IPRO, a not-for-profit health care evaluation and quality improvement organization, conducted all data analysis and Web development for the site.
"In five minutes, I was able to compare my own hospital's performance on dozens of measures to those of other large teaching hospitals, to best performers in California, and to national performance leaders, using WhyNotTheBest.org," said Robert Wachter, M.D., Associate Chairman of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, Department of Medicine. "I was also able to trend our performance over time and read how innovators solved their own quality problems. WhyNotTheBest.org represents the marriage of health care transparency and modern Web technologies, and the results are thrilling."
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