(OAK BROOK, Ill., USA - February 21, 2008) Joint Commission International (JCI) today announced a three-year continuation of a partnership with Italy's Lombardy Regional Health Service (RHS) to analyze the quality of care in that region's 190 public and private hospitals and standardize the continuity of care between the hospitals, the 15 local health authorities (LHAs) which govern the hospitals, and community-based services and health care organizations. The project also includes a transfer of know how to the LHAs to provide constant monitoring of the system and quality improvement projects.
Building on a set about 60 JCI standards implemented between 2004 and 2007, JCI will help RHS-accredited hospitals to identify and implement a new set of standards and measure and self-assess outcomes. In addition to the care continuum, the new standards will focus largely on improving patient safety, with a strong emphasis on the International Patient Safety Goals, the Patient Safety Solutions, the assessment and care of patients in high risk settings, such as anesthesia and surgical care, and medication management. The partnership's goal is to achieve better qualitative performances and improve the effective transfer and care of patients among all health care organizations in the Lombardy RHS.
The collaboration with JCI is in response to the Lombardy Region's institutional goal of establishing a continuous quality improvement process and raising the bar on meeting the health care needs of its more than nine million citizens. As in the previous three-year project, a team of JCI consultants, including clinical and administrative experts, will work directly with the hospitals and LHAs to help implement quality improvement processes and subsequently assess the progress of each individual organization for compliance with the identified standards. JCI consultants also provide detailed comparative analysis to the Region and all 190 hospitals and 15 LHAs on a regular basis, comparing each structure's performance with a similar group. The hospitals and LHAs submit online self-assessments to the Region on a quarterly basis and outline and track the progress of related quality improvement projects.
"The partnership with the region of Lombardy is groundbreaking in that it is bringing the focus of quality and patient safety to the international community," says Karen H. Timmons, JCI president and CEO. "We are pleased that the Lombardy RHS has turned to JCI to develop a measurement and assessment system that will promote improvement in hospitals and reassure patients of the level of quality and efficient care that is provided."
"The Lombardy Region is proud of the project in partnership with the Joint Commission International, which signals another point in favor of the citizens of the territory", says Dr. Luciano Bresciani, Lombardy Region Health Minister. "Therefore, this new project we are inaugurating with JCI pushes us to demand even more from our own Health System, taking quality monitoring directly to the patient.
JCI first partnered with Lombardy in 2004 as part of the region's initial effort to develop a consolidated health care assessment system among its public and private hospitals. As a result of the first of the partnership, Lombardy hospitals showed significant improvement in:
- Informed consent;
- Continuity of care in hospital discharge within communities;
- Patient hand-off communication; and
- Credentialing processes for physicians and nurses.
The new phase of this partnership will continue until 2010, with the priorities being the development and consolidation of quality programs, educating hospitals on assessment techniques and promotion and dissemination of quality projects for the continuity of patient care services.