Insights from the Armstrong Institute
Recently, I had an enlightening encounter with Horst Schulze, who led Ritz-Carlton Hotels to national awards and has since opened his own hotel chain, Capella. Hortz gave an informal presentation to members of a program that I’m taking part in, the Baldrige Executive Fellowship, and we continued to talk afterwards. Capella has five ultraluxury hotels(...)
Jul 31, 2012 1 comment
Some of the best ideas for improving health care come from outside our field. For example, we’ve adapted cockpit-style checklists from aviation to improve teamwork and communication on our clinical teams. We’ve turned to performance improvement methods from manufacturing to reduce waste and defects in care delivery. A recent experience reminded of the value of seeking(...)
Jul 24, 2012 8 comments
I recently spoke to an executive in the energy industry who had a joint replacement at a hospital in New York. His wound developed an infection, which required four additional hospital admissions and several operations. He asked me about hand hygiene in hospitals. Proudly, I told him that, at Johns Hopkins Hospital, we are at 80(...)
Dec 15, 2011 3 comments
I recently gave a talk to the American Medical Student Association. The energy in the room was palpable. The students were excited, passionate and hopeful. We spoke about the urgent need to reduce preventable harm and to enhance value, and we discussed that they will need to be the ones to lead these efforts. Yet,(...)
Nov 8, 2011 9 comments
WANTED: Clinicians for long-term relationship to lead unit and department safety efforts. Must be passionate about improving patient outcomes and value, have skills needed to lead these efforts, and enjoy working as part of a team. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in pushing the civil rights agenda, spoke of the "fierce urgency of now." Recent(...)
Oct 27, 2011 1 comment
In early June, Dean Miller and Mr. Peterson announced the formation of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. Since then, we have been busy, interviewing many of you, listening to your ideas and concerns, merging the Center for Innovation and the Quality and Safety Research Group into a single new entity. We are(...)
Sep 29, 2011 7 comments