Happy New Year to all NEAHQ members and contacts! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season with a chance to rest and rejuvenate. 2025 promises to be as challenging as 2024 for healthcare providers. NEAHQ is your source for education, networking, and resources to help you improve quality and safety in your organization. Check out the learning opportunities offered by NEAHQ and other associations in the Program Committee update below.
I encourage all members to update their member profile by logging in to www.neahq.org and clicking Edit My Profile on the dropdown menu next to your name in the upper right corner. Using the membership directory to network with colleagues is one of the benefits of membership. If you are not a member, please join today!
The NEAHQ nominating team is now seeking applications for the 2025 – 2026 Board of Directors. Active members are eligible to apply. Becoming a part of NEAHQ leadership gives you the opportunity to help shape the future of the organization and healthcare quality. Please consider applying!
Aliysa Rajwani
Interested in becoming a NEAHQ Director?
The NEAHQ nominating team is seeking applications for the 2025 - 2026 Board of Directors ballot that will be presented to the membership for a vote in March 2025.
Becoming a part of the NEAHQ leadership gives you the opportunity to help shape the future of the organization and healthcare quality. Board leaders are responsible for:
- Guiding the association
- Anticipating change in the quality environment
- Addressing the interests and needs of members
The candidate positions available include:
President-elect is a three (3) year commitment, serving a year as President-Elect, a year as President and a year as Past- President.
Directors serve for a one-year term, act as a representative of the healthcare quality professional community, serve as an ambassador for stakeholder and community relations and work with Board to carry out its responsibilities. They actively participate in the work of the organization, such as programs.
Treasurer serves for a two-year term, pays the bills and maintains the financial records of the association.
Please contact Lynn Myers at 781-308-0501 or myerslynn225@gmail.com to discuss the various positions or complete an application.
NEAHQ and our affiliated partner associations, as part of the multi-state Healthcare Quality Association Collective, have several great programs scheduled this winter. Some programs are free for NEAHQ members, while others are discounted. Visit our Events Calendar to connect to registration information for each of these programs or navigate through the links below. Thank you for your continued support and participation!
- MAHQ presents Eradicating Inequity: Understanding Microaggressions and How to Deal with Them 07 Jan 2025 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
- OrAHQ presents CPHQ Review Course 09 – 11 Jan 2025 12:00pm - 4:30pm EST
- OrAHQ presents Educating our Future Workforce: Transforming Healthcare Delivery 10 Jan 2025 4:30pm - 6:00pm EST
- NEAHQ presents High Tech For High Touch: Patient-Centered Virtual Care 15 Jan 2025 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
- FAHQ presents Infection Control and the Survey Process 17 Jan 2025 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
- OAHQ presents: Creation of the Stroke STANSE Team to Improve Stroke Outcome 04 Feb 2025 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
- FAHQ presents How to Bring Multi-Site Ambulatory Centers to Pathway to Excellence® 18 Feb 2025 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
- AzAHQ Presents Mastering QAPI: Building a High- Performing Plan That Guarantees Compliance and Excellence 21 Mar 2025 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
Four Strategies Health Care Leaders Can Use to Improve Safety and Quality in Their Organizations
Health care leaders today face more challenges on the job than ever before—from staffing and supply shortages to tighter budgets and tougher regulations, along with increased demand on an already overburdened medical system. This makes it essential that doctors, nurses, administrative leaders, policy makers, researchers, and other industry professionals have strong and effective skill sets to draw on to navigate the roadblocks they face every day, according to Katherine Santos, MBA, chief strategy officer of Legacy Lifecare. Santos also serves as the lead program director for Harvard Medical School’s Safety, Quality, Informatics, and Leadership Program, a one-year Postgraduate Medical Education certificate program designed to equip leaders with the tools and knowledge they need to implement meaningful change in their organizations.
Taking a Comprehensive Approach to Creating Change
Santos points out that the most successful health care professionals share some common strategies they practice regularly as part of their commitment to integrate safety and quality into their organizations’ efforts. Here are four approaches that can lead to improved performance and outcomes on many levels:
- Engage patients and families in your quality improvement work to achieve better outcomes.
- Build a continuous learning system and test ideas in the smallest possible way to refine them before you scale them.
- Use data and evidence-based learnings to guide all of your efforts.
- Find the intersection of your personal strengths, passions, and your professional role to maximize your impact.
Read the full article by Lisa D. Ellis at Harvard Medical School Trends in Medicine.
NEAHQ currently has $40,176.58 in total assets as of the end of November 2024. Total revenue generated in 2024 YTD (Jan-November) is $3,970.41. NEAHQ generated $2765.19 in revenue from membership dues while $755.22 came from programs. Total expenditures for 2024 YTD (Jan-November) are $7,477.14. Total expenditures were made up of administrative and operating expenses.
As always, please feel free to reach out to treasurer@neahq.org with any questions.
Would you please share a brief overview of your career?
I have over 15 years of healthcare experience spanning from being a medical lab technologist, discovering the world of Performance Improvement and Patient Safety and for the last 5 years working as an infection preventionist.
My career started off as a medical lab technologist working in microbiology, chemistry and hematology. In this role, I got involved in quality improvement initiatives such as improving processes. The enjoyment of making improvements led to an opportunity to work at Mass General Brigham as a Quality Specialist. There I had the opportunity to be trained in Lean Six Sigma as well as how to be an improvement coach and became an instructor in Operations improvement – teaching staff hospital-wide improvement methodologies. A key accomplishment was a project about centralization of the phlebotomy that improved the turn-around time of lab tests completed by 8:30AM from 43% to 80%.
As the lead Quality Analyst at Beth Israel Lahey Health, I identified early discharges as an opportunity for having a Charge Nurse without an assignment – this initiative improved discharges before noon from 5% to 21%.
As an Infection Preventionist at Beth Israel Lahey Health and at the VA, I developed a robust infection prevention and control program that resulted in zero hospital acquired infections for the first quarter of FY2024.
Which aspect of your current position is especially rewarding?
Being able to develop strong working relationships and trust with colleagues across the healthcare spectrum. This is very important since infection prevention impacts all aspects of healthcare.
Has any one individual greatly influenced to your career?
Barbara Corning-Davis has been instrumental in my career relating to process/operational improvement.
What led to your involvement with NEAHQ?
Networking and professional development opportunities as well to contribute/share with peers.
What are your goals as a NEAHQ Board Member?
To make sure that this organization continues to grow; to work with peers to provide educational opportunities and resources to members.
How do you balance your demanding professional life with your personal life?
Prioritizing the importance of health, well-being and family because before you know it your children will be all grown up.
PI Corner – Process Improvement Project Charter
The Project Charter is a living document that outlines a process improvement project for both the team as well as leadership. Teams use the charter to clarify the process issue being addressed, the reason for addressing it and what “success” looks like for those working on it. It’s also used to clarify what’s not being addressed. The charter provides a rationale and roadmap for the team’s work that can be used to clarify thinking about what needs to be done and why. It also provides a key communication tool to help inform your team, colleagues, constituents, sponsors, and stakeholders about what the team is doing. The charter helps keep the focus on a specific opportunity or problem.
High Reliability Principle: Preoccupation with Failure
Check out the blog here.
Safety, Quality, Informatics, and Leadership Certificate Program
Harvard Medical School’s Safety, Quality, Informatics, and Leadership program is a one-year certificate designed for medical professionals in—or aspiring to—leadership roles focused on improving clinical quality and patient safety through informatics. Designed for busy professionals, this program blends the convenience of virtual learning with the depth of live collaboration. Participate in three interactive workshops (two live virtual and one in Boston) that blend theory with practice, ensuring you gain the tools to drive impactful change in health care. The priority enrollment deposit deadline is April 9, 2025. Applicants who are accepted into the program and make the required tuition deposit by April 9, will receive a $1,000 discount off the standard tuition fee.
Patient Safety: Emerging Applications of Safety Science, Somerset, UK: Class Publishing; 2024.
Patient safety improvement builds on a wide array of theories to achieve success. This book highlights activities that support the implementation of foundational concepts such as safety science, human factors, and Safety II to a range of care environments through incident review case-based strategy.
Written by people who work in patient safety, and with chapters on subjects such as System Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS), AcciMaps and Human Factors, this book is for everyone with an interest in how the landscape of patient safety is changing and how to apply good practice for the reduction of avoidable harm.
(Cox C, Hughes H, Nicholls J, eds.) https://psnet.ahrq.gov/issue/patient-safety-emerging-applications-safety-science
For more information, visit https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/PublicFullRecord.aspx?p=31580006
Engaging patients and families in safety improvement work: Use this ‘how to’ to engage patients and families in safety improvement work
Patient and family engagement can improve the safety and quality of care, lead to better health outcomes and increase patient satisfaction.
Yet many organizations committed to including patients in their work — health care providers, government agencies, and others — find it challenging to do so consistently and successfully.
The Betsy Lehman Center offers a guide you can use when asking patients or consumers to serve as contributors to expert panels, safety and quality improvement committees, task forces, and advisory councils.
Developed with the help of a Boston-based patient navigator, “Including the patient voice: A guide to engaging the public in programs and policy development” describes six essential elements to the effective involvement of patients or their families. It includes checklists, toolkits and other resources to help set patients up for success and maximize their value to your organization.
You can access the guide on the Betsy Lehman Center website.