Stroudwater Associates has spent 40 years assisting rural hospitals with strategic, financial, operational, clinical, and quality improvement efforts. Through this experience, Stroudwater has examined key themes that drive quality improvement in rural hospital operations. The checklist below is a high-level list of questions for organizational leaders to ask themselves about their quality program. If you answer no to any of these questions, it may be worth considering an independent assessment of your organization’s quality program.
| QUESTION | YES | NO |
| Does your organization commit to advancing healthcare quality through educating its workforce? | ||
| Is quality embedded into organizational culture? | ||
| Does your organization set clearly defined goals and have a methodology for achieving those goals? | ||
| Is a process established to advance patients through the healthcare continuum appropriately? | ||
| Is data at the heart of decision-making? Does your organization have a central quality scorecard? | ||
| Is the organization in a constant state of survey readiness regardless of the accrediting agency? | ||
| Does the organization have a Just and Safe culture where employees are empowered to speak up? | ||
| Are regulatory requirements being met? | ||
| Is the organization considering quality as a strategic priority? Is it written into the organizational strategic plan? | ||
| Are quality and utilization incentives considered when planning for the evolving payment systems? |
The first step in improving an organization’s quality program is gauging the effectiveness of the organization’s measurement culture. Without measurement, internal politics and subjectivity rule decision-making. The article below provides a brief overview of the importance of a measurement culture and suggests initial steps to establish measurement as an organizational priority.
