Patient Safety Resources for GHI Providers
GHI takes patient safety seriously, and we have developed programs to educate our members and providers about this important subject. The following links are geared specifically to providers and present comparative data that will help you compare your performance against regional and national benchmarks and design improvement programs as indicated. We have also assembled some helpful links to educate our members about patient safety and prevention of medical errors, and provide quality of care guidelines and tools.
NCQA's Recognized Physician Directory allows you to identify some physicians in your area who demonstrate a high level of performance in providing care for specialties.
National Quality Forum, a private, not-for-profit membership organization, develops and implements a national strategy for health care quality measurement and report. The link provides comprehensive information on patient safety and health care improvement.
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is a division of the U.S. Health and Human Services Administration, which supports research designed to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for Americans.
20 Tips to Help Prevent Medical Errors - Click on this link to read a patient fact sheet prepared by AHRQ on understanding medical errors and simple, practical ways for patients to actively prevent medical errors.
Tips about Elective Surgery provides a list of tips and questions for patients to ask before elective surgery to help them prepare for a surgical experience and make it as safe and successful as possible.
The Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) site provides national and regional information and statistics on hospital care. HCUP is sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. This site allows you to research hospital utilization, access, charges, quality and outcomes, and more.
New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), Center for Consumer Health Care Information, Patient Safety Center - This NYS site has a wide range of information, including patient safety reports, clinical care guidelines, facts sheets, and quality levels of specific providers, hospitals, and nursing homes.
New York State Physician Profile provides detailed information on a provider including education, specialty, office locations, languages spoken, hospital affiliations, and any legal actions.
Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) maintains a Quality Check tool that can be used by consumers to compare providers or health care facilities to determine whether they provide the quality of care the patient needs.
Hospital Compare was created through the efforts of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and organizations that represent hospitals, doctors, employers, accrediting organization, other federal agencies, and the public. The site provides standardized assessments of care to adult patients at some 4,200 hospitals across the U.S., based on valid, reliable measures shown to reflect quality of care.
