Attachment E -- List of Websites

Attachment E

List of Websites that Offer Healthcare Quality Improvement and Innovation Information

The following websites were reviewed for content related to health care innovation and quality improvement.

• American Academy of Nursing (http://www.aannet.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3303) seeks “to transform health care policy and practice through nursing knowledge.” Through their Raise the Voice Campaign, AAN has identified nursing projects (known as “Edge Runners”) that “are designed to integrate mental and physical care.”

• American Public Health Association (http://www.apha.org/programs/disparitiesdb/) sponsors a health disparities data base of innovations.

• California Health Care Foundations Improvement Network (www.chcf.org) seeks “to accelerate the process of enabling California primary care clinicians to deliver high-quality chronic disease care by providing opportunities to share expertise and skills.” CHCF also aims to make health care more accessible to the underserved populations of California.

• Center for Global eHealth Innovations (www.ehealthinnovation.org) at the University Health Network and University of Toronto aims to improve health through information and communication technologies by evaluating and developing eHealth innovations.

• Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) (http://www.chcs.org/) is a national nonprofit organization devoted to improving the quality of health services for beneficiaries of publicly financed care, with goals to improve health care quality; reduce racial and ethnic disparities; and integrate acute and long-term care.

• IHI’s IMPACT Network (http://www.ihi.org) and collaborative learning communities are organizations that are committed to developing and spreading clinical and operational improvements.

• IdeA Knowledge (http://www.idea-knowledge.gov.uk) is designed to “deliver in-depth improvement news and examples of good practice (including health care) from councils across England and Wales, and provides access to tools and services.”

• The Garfield Innovation Center of Kaiser Permanente (http://xnet.kp.org/innovationcenter/index.html) is an innovations laboratory where “many aspects of delivering healthcare can be innovated and examined using real-world scenarios and activities, such as simulations, technology testing, prototyping, product evaluations, and training.”

• MacColl Institute for Health Care Innovation (www.centerforhealthstudies.org) is sponsored by Group Health Cooperative. The Center for Health Studies “develops, evaluates, and disseminates innovations in health care delivery.”

• MacMillian Cancer Relief Fund (http://www.macmillan.org.uk/Share/home.aspx) supports a robust network of learning communities that reaches out to and engages a diverse audience to improve cancer care.

• Medicare Quality Improvement Community (MEDQIC) (http://www.medqic.org/), is a CMS sponsored site which is “a national knowledge forum for health care and quality improvement professionals providing access to quality improvement resources and a community of professionals sharing knowledge and experiences to accelerate health care quality improvement across the nation.”

• Plexus Institute’s (www.plexusinstitute.org) mission is to “foster the health of individuals, families, communities and organizations and our natural environment by helping people use concepts emerging from the new science of complexity.”

• Positive Deviance Initiative (http://www.positivedeviance.org/) is a Ford Foundation‑funded effort aimed at sharing information on global positive deviance and expanding practitioners and trainers.

• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (www.rwjf.org) pioneer grant program promotes “fundamental breakthroughs in health and health care through innovative projects.”

• SSM Health Care (www.ssmhc.com) is a large Catholic health care system in the United States that is committed to serve patients regardless of their ability to pay, while maintaining a commitment to quality care.

• The Commonwealth Fund (http://www.commonwealthfund.org/) is a foundation that works to achieve a health care system with “better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.”

• The Institute for Innovation and Improvement (http://chain.ulcc.ac.uk/chain/about.html) of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom sponsors multi professional and cross-organizational CHAINS—Contact, Help, Advice and Information Networks. In particular, there is a chain aimed at people interested in innovation and improvement in health care to exchange ideas and share knowledge.

The Home Health Quality Improvement National Campaign (http://www.homehealthquality.org/hh/) was started by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Home Health Quality Improvement Organization Support Center, Quality Insight of Pennsylvania. The campaign is tasked with reducing the number of preventable hospitalizations by improving the quality of home health care so patients can continue to receive care in the home.