Improvement Tools

Review this list of comparative quality reports to find out who's reporting, what they report, and how they present the information. (Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)  — View Improvement Tool

These educational tools, available in English, Spanish, Arabic, Farsi, Russian, Hmong, and several other languages, are intended to help patients understand potential safety issues and partner with their providers in preventing medical errors. (Source: Healthy Roads Media)  — View Improvement Tool

This generic discharge instruction form indicates where the patient is being discharged to and also includes patient and medication instructions. (Source: Delray Medical Center)  — View Improvement Tool

This handout helps patients recognize and understand the symptoms of heart failure and how to respond. The flyer can be used in or out of the hospital to help patients understand their symptoms and how they should respond to them, especially "red flag" symptoms. (Source: Allina Hospitals and Clinics/United Health)  — View Improvement Tool

Use this calculator tool to estimate the number of hospital-acquired venous thromboembolism (VTE) at your hospital, and the proportion that are potentially preventable. (Source: Society of Hospital Medicine)  — View Improvement Tool

Six Catholic Healthcare Partners' hospitals created the position of heart failure advocate, staffed by registered nurses who received extensive training in heart failure management and treatment. (Source: Catholic Healthcare Partners)  — View Improvement Tool

This guide contains 28 case studies targeting four improvement areas: health care-acquired infections, medication management, patient throughput, and patient safety. Each case study detail show a problem related to one of the four areas manifested in a particular hospital, how the hospital chose to fix the problem and the outcomes of the implemented strategy. (Source: American Hospital Association)  — View Improvement Tool

The guide includes: A description of the case for improving hand hygiene and use of gloves among health care workers; Recommended evidence-based interventions that will result in improvement; How to begin improving hand hygiene compliance in your organization, including establishing a team, setting aims, testing changes, and measuring results; Measurement support tools. (Source: Institute for Healthcare Improvement (in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, and the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America))  — View Improvement Tool

With multidisciplinary rounds, disciplines come together, informed by their clinical expertise, to coordinate patient care, determine care priorities, establish daily goals, and plan for potential transfer or discharge. This How-to Guide describes: key components of reliable multidisciplinary rounds; potential impact on outcomes; examples of success; fundamentals for forming the team, setting aims, and testing changes on a small scale; and tips for getting started and for successfully implementing multidisciplinary rounds. (Source: Institute for Healthcare Improvement)  — View Improvement Tool

The key components of the Ventilator Bundle are: Elevation of the Head of the Bed; Daily "Sedation Vacations" and Assessment of Readiness to Extubate; Peptic Ulcer Disease Prophylaxis; Deep Venous Thrombosis Prophylaxis. (Source: Institute for Healthcare Improvement)  — View Improvement Tool

This report describes two tools developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)-funded research that help assess the need for hospitalization of patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) and determine the medical stability of patients prior to discharge. This report also discusses the importance of early administration of antibiotic therapy and the effectiveness of older, proven, yet inexpensive antibiotics compared with those used in the outpatient treatment of patients with CAP. (Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)  — View Improvement Tool

The purpose of this toolkit is to make references, product information and associated tools readily accessible, in order to support infection prevention and control staff in the implementation of interventions that are in addition to the IHI infection prevention bundle measures. (Source: Kaiser Permanente)  — View Improvement Tool

This site provides tools and educational resources designed to improve the early identification, assessment, documentation, and communication about changes in the status of residents in skilled nursing facilities with the goal of improving care and reducing the frequency of potentially avoidable transfers to the hospital. (Source: Florida Atlantic University)  — View Improvement Tool

This tool is used to document education about care after discharge that is provided to patients with congestive heart failure and their families. (Source: Cleveland Regional Medical Center)  — View Improvement Tool

This Infection Control Policy provides instructions for conducting patient screening for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and details procedures for managing positive MRSA cultures. (Source: St John's Regional Health Center)  — View Improvement Tool

The Oregon Heart Failure GAP (Guidelines Applied in Practice) Toolkit contains a variety of tools, some for clinicians treating patients suffering from heart failure, and others for heart failure patients themselves. (Source: American College of Cardiology - Oregon Chapter)  — View Improvement Tool

This toolkit helps health care organizations assess the effectiveness of their communication with patients, focusing on common problems such as cultural, language, and health literacy gaps. It provides a comprehensive evaluation, with surveys of patients, clinicians, non-clinical staff, and leadership as well as an organizational checklist. (Source: American Medical Association's Ethical Force Program)  — View Improvement Tool

This self-assessment tool enables organizations to understand the range and breadth of elements under patient- and family-centered care and to assess where they are against the leading edge of practice. (Source: Institute for Healthcare Improvement and National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality)  — View Improvement Tool

This form is used to indicate physician admission orders for patients with heart failure (Source: Cleveland Regional Medical Center)  — View Improvement Tool

This form is used to indicate the physician's discharge orders for patients with congestive heart failure. (Source: Cleveland Regional Medical Center)  — View Improvement Tool