Uptake, outcomes, and costs of implementing non-invasive prenatal testing for Down’s syndrome into NHS maternity care

"Implementation of NIPT [non-invasive prenatal testing] as a contingent test within a public sector Down’s syndrome screening programme can improve quality of care, choices for women, and overall performance within the current budget."

Uptake, outcomes, and costs of implementing non-invasive prenatal testing for Down’s syndrome into NHS maternity care: prospective cohort study in eight diverse maternity units
LS Chitty
BMJ 2016; 354 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i3426

Read more here.

Multifocal Clinical Performance Improvement Across 21 Hospitals

"Improving quality and safety across an entire healthcare system in multiple clinical areas within a short time frame is challenging. We describe our experience with improving inpatient quality and safety at Kaiser Permanente Northern California."

Multifocal Clinical Performance Improvement Across 21 Hospitals
Crawford, Barbara; Skeath, Melinda; Whippy, Alan
Journal For Healthcare Quality, 2015 - 37(2), pp. 117–125

Read more here.

Implementing electronic health records in hospitals: a systematic literature review

"Although EHR systems are anticipated as having positive effects on the performance of hospitals, their implementation is a complex undertaking. This systematic review reveals reasons for this complexity and presents a framework of 19 interventions that can help overcome typical problems in EHR implementation."

Implementing electronic health records in hospitals: a systematic literature review
A Boonstra1, A Versluis, JFJ Vos
BMC Health Services Research 2014, 14:370

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Insight: getting it right (systemising commissioning)

"Systemising commissioning processes and utilising Right Care data has enabled two CCGs in Sefton to deliver improvements"

Insight: getting it right
M Cunningham
The Commissioning Review
June 2014

Read more here.

Having quality as an item on the executive board agenda

"Having quality as an item on the executive board’s agenda allows them to review and discuss quality performance more often in order to improve their hospital’s quality management. Generally, and as this study found, having quality on the executive board’s agenda matters."

Is having quality as an item on the executive board agenda associated with the implementation of quality management systems in European hospitals: a quantitative analysis
D Botje, NS Klazinga, R Suñol, O Groene, H Pfaff, R Mannion, A Depaigne-Loth, OA Arah, M Dersarkissian, C Wagner
International Journal of Quality in Health Care, 2014, February 17, doi:10.1093/intqhc/mzu017

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Helping hospitals deliver better care: a new toolkit for quality improvement

"The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) contracted with a team of researchers from RAND and the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC), a large collection of academic medical centers, to develop a toolkit for hospitals to support their quality improvement efforts based on the AHRQ quality indicators."

Helping hospitals deliver better care: a new toolkit for quality improvement
RAND Health
May 2012

Read more here.

Access the toolkit here.

Leadership and engagement for improvement in the NHS

"Report from The King's Fund Leadership Review 2012."

Leadership and engagement for improvement in the NHS: together we can
The King's Fund
May 2012

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The performance improvement imperative

"Improving care for the chronically ill is just one of many steps required to lower national health spending and bring about the dramatic change needed in the way health care is organized and provided."

The performance improvement imperative: utilizing a coordinated, community-based approach to enhance care and lower costs for chronically ill patients
The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System
April 2012

Read more here.

NHS Performance Framework: implementation guidance

"The NHS Performance Framework sets out the Department's approach to identifying underperforming NHS organisations and stipulates when intervention should occur in such organisations."

NHS Performance Framework: implementation guidance
Department of Health
April 2012

Read the full document here together with accompanying documents.