HQW 2024: Taking Quality to Higher Ground-video - taking quality to higher ground

Video Transcription

Video Summary

Health care leaders Jonathan Perlin (The Joint Commission), Stephanie Mercado (NAHQ/NACU), and moderator Josh Berlin discuss how quality and safety have evolved and where they must go next. They argue the “yesterday” problem was well‑intended regulation and compliance mandates without actionable plans, plus fragmented approaches that treated quality, safety, process improvement, and reliability as separate silos. Both emphasize quality and safety are inseparable from the patient perspective and should be framed as excellence, not paperwork.

They cite <em>To Err Is Human</em> as a galvanizing milestone that exposed the magnitude of harm, though progress since then has been real despite rising clinical and operational complexity. Today, they see a transition point: stronger vocabulary, tools, and workforce competencies—highlighting NACU’s competency framework and Workforce Accelerator results at Kaiser Permanente and the VA. Perlin stresses quality is also the best business case, improving outcomes, efficiency, morale, and workforce pride.

Looking ahead, both are optimistic, pointing to AI’s potential to reduce diagnostic error and to more aligned measures and incentives. The Joint Commission’s “HELP” agenda (health equity, environmental sustainability, learning/AI, performance integration) and NACU’s expansion of competencies, certification (CPHQ), and research aim to embed quality as everyone’s job. Their closing advice: focus on outcomes, lead with optimism, and “dare greatly” to accelerate change.

Keywords

healthcare quality and safety

The Joint Commission

NACU NAHQ

CPHQ certification

To Err Is Human

quality improvement and reliability

health equity

AI in patient safety

performance integration HELP agenda