Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Information

"Working for the Best Ear, Nose, and Throat Care" is the core mission of your Academy because it is the core mission of every practicing otolaryngologist-head and neck surgeon.  Your Academy is committed to bringing you the resources that you need to provide safe, effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable care for your patients.

As a specialty, we must either engage in creating and implementing clinically valid performance measures or have them imposed on us by external entities. Evidence-based products developed by otolaryngologists for otolaryngologists will be needed for our specialty to meet the demands of payers, accrediting bodies, and maintenance of certification and licensure programs, so that our members can succeed in the changing healthcare marketplace. As otolaryngologists – head and neck surgeons we must take the lead in defining what “quality care” means for our specialty. Your Academy’s goal is to develop clinical practice guidelines and performance measures that can apply to every practicing otolaryngologist – head and neck surgeon as quickly and efficiently as possible.

If you don't find the patient safety and quality improvement resources that you are looking for on our website, please contact us at qualityimprovement@entnet.org. We'll help you find the answer to your question and improve the resources for all Academy members.

National Focus on Healthcare Quality

• Quality in Otolaryngology
  
• National Quality Data
  
• How is quality defined?

Improving Patient Safety and Reducing the Risk of Error

• Basic Quality Improvement Tools
  
• Improving Communication with Your Patients  

What are the guidelines and standards of care I should follow?

• Clinical Practice Guidelines
  
• Performance Measures
  
• Clinical Indicators Compendium
  
• Policy on Performance Measures

New: Guidelines Development Task Force Toolkit

• Guideline Manual
• Multi-vs-Specialty Specific Matrix
• Clinical Consensus Statement Guide
• GDTF Topic Submission Form

What is pay-for-performance (P4P) and how will it affect my practice?

• 2008 PQRI Measures Otolaryngologists Can Use
  
• CMS PQRI Bonus
  
• Policy on Pay-for-Performance

Other Quality Improvement Resources

• White paper: Going Lean in Health Care (PDF)
• The Measurement of Health Care Performance
  
• Accrediting agencies
  
• Patient Checklist
• Other Quality Improvement Resources

• WHO “Safe Surgery Saves Lives” Campaign
  The Safe Surgery Saves Lives initiative was established by the World Alliance for Patient Safety as part of the World Health Organization’s efforts to reduce the number of surgical deaths across the world. The aim of this initiative is to harness political commitment and clinical will to address important safety issues, including inadequate anesthetic safety practices, avoidable surgical infection and poor communication among team members. To assist operating teams in reducing the number of these events, the Alliance—in consultation with surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, patient safety experts and patients around the world—has identified a set of safety checks that could be performed in any operating room. Learn more

• "Safe Surgery Save Lives" Checklist: A Simple Surgical Safety Checklist by the World Health Organization