On-Demand Webinar: Laboratory Medicine and Healthcare Quality: Foundational Pillars for Excellence-PPT Deck - Laboratory Medicine and Healthcare Quality: Foundational Pillars for Excellence

PPT Deck - Laboratory Medicine and Healthcare Quality: Foundational Pillars for Excellence

Pdf Summary

The document summarizes a National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ) webinar on how laboratory medicine and healthcare quality work together to improve outcomes, especially when implementing new processes and biomarkers. It emphasizes using a common “language of quality,” supported by NAHQ’s Healthcare Quality Competency Framework, and highlights the evolving perceived value of healthcare quality professionals along with proficiency differences between CPHQ-certified and non-certified professionals across key competency domains.<br /><br />A central case example is sepsis, described as a major global health burden (about 50 million cases annually and 11 million deaths worldwide) and a costly U.S. healthcare issue. Sepsis is presented as an ideal improvement target because there are established recognition criteria, diagnostic and treatment guidelines, emerging biomarkers, and clear benchmarks for measuring success.<br /><br />The webinar outlines practical quality improvement tools that can be applied in clinical laboratory and hospital settings, including process mapping (to define current and ideal states), SIPOC, root cause analysis, visual management, data analysis, and Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Process maps are positioned as the foundation for FMEA by identifying each step where failures might occur. FMEA is explained as a proactive, structured method to predict how processes can fail, assess consequences, score and prioritize risks (including use of techniques like the “5 Whys”), and generate action plans, redesigned “future state” workflows, and monitoring plans.<br /><br />The document also introduces the UNIVANTS of Healthcare Excellence awards, a global, product-agnostic recognition program sponsored by Abbott that celebrates cross-disciplinary teams using innovative approaches—often leveraging lab data—to produce measurable improvements for patients, clinicians, payors, and health systems. It provides application steps and deadlines, and notes continuing education information and upcoming NAHQ events.

Keywords

NAHQ webinar

laboratory medicine quality improvement

Healthcare Quality Competency Framework

CPHQ certification

sepsis care improvement

clinical biomarkers implementation

process mapping

SIPOC analysis

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)

UNIVANTS of Healthcare Excellence awards