Feb 11 2013

UMHS Quality & Safety website: Support Services Program of the Year

by Kara Gavin, contributing writer Comments (0)
General, Technology

What do our patients think of the care we provide, and the environment we provide it in?

How well do we keep our patients from getting infections or complications related to their care?

How often do we make sure that patients with diabetes, asthma and heart disease get tests and medications that can keep their condition in check?

What’s the survival rate for patients who have transplants or complex operations at UMHS?

How often do our clinicians wash their hands?

The answers to these questions – and many more – can be found on a website that’s open to everyone, anywhere in the world.

It’s all there in the charts, graphs, easy-to-understand explanations and more on www.uofmhealth.org/quality, the UMHS Quality & Safety site.

Putting this huge amount of data on a public website makes UMHS one of the most “transparent” health systems in the country. It’s part of our commitment to patient safety and high-quality care.

That website has just been named Support Services Program of the Year for 2012, and the award was given to the team that built and maintains the site with no additional financial support. They call themselves “Team Transparency”, and they include members of the Performance Assessment & Clinical Effectiveness (PACE) division of the Office of Clinical Affairs, and of the Public Relations & Marketing Communications department. PACE includes members of the former Clinical Information and Decision Support Services (CIDSS) and Customer Performance Metrics & Improvement units.

Working with no additional funding, the team designed the UMHS Quality & Safety site from the ground up to offer comprehensive, easy-to-understand, easy-to-navigate and fully transparent data and information about UMHS clinical performance.  It’s fully integrated into UofMHealth.org, the Health System’s patient-focused web presence.

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Feb 11 2013

Bringing Hope to UMHS: Clinical Program of the Year

by Kara Gavin, contributing writer Comments (1)
General, Patient-focused

Being without health insurance is like walking a tightrope without a safety net below you. All it takes is one tiny slip to send you into a health crisis.

But for uninsured people in Washtenaw and western Wayne counties, a charity called the Hope Clinic helps keep uninsured patients from falling too far.

For decades, U-M doctors, nurses, staff, medical students and residents have volunteered at Hope’s location in Ypsilanti, helping weave a safety net that has served thousands of people.

Accepting the Program of the Year award for clinical services on behalf of the dozens of UMHS faculty, staff and trainees who have volunteered for the Hope@UMHS program are, from left, Perry Schechtman, Ophthalmology, Heather Pontasch, Dermatology, Julie Brown, Hope Clinic, Trisha Goodridge, Plastic Surgery, Robbi Kupfer, Otolaryngology, Katherine Simpson, Hope Clinic, Seyi Aliu, Plastic Surgery, and Paul Salow, Otolaryngology/Anesthesiology.

Now, Hope has come to UMHS in the form of a specialty clinics held at the Taubman Center and Kellogg Eye Center – a major step made possible through the tireless efforts of faculty, staff and trainees in several specialty departments.

This effort, called Hope@UMHS, has earned the UMHS 2012 Program of the Year recognition – as well as the gratitude of the hundreds of patients who have already been seen there.

The Saturday-morning specialty clinics – - staffed by an all-volunteer team – - help uninsured patients get free access to advanced care that can’t be offered at Hope’s own locations. Read the rest of this entry »