Somerville, Mass.-based Mass General Brigham is taking a new approach to quality with the launch of "For Every Patient" — a four-pillar strategy to standardize practices and improve patient outcomes, according to a July 6 report from the Boston Business Journal.
Leaders from the system spoke exclusively with the news outlet about the new initiative after it was internally shared in June. Mass General Brigham describes For Every Patient as its "first-ever unified quality strategy," designed to "unify a single vision and set of practices across MGB's hospitals and clinical care sites to deliver safe, effective and equitable care that will improve quality," according to the report.
As part of the effort, MGB plans to home in on the following four pillars to achieve better, more consistent outcomes over the next five years: effective, safe, equitable and patient experience. The system is creating an analytics platform to support clinicians in ensuring these principles are built into every patient's care.
Three more things to know about the strategy:
- Moving the needle on health equity is a core part of the strategy. In the first few years of the program, MGB aims to improve equity in blood pressure control, substance abuse overdose deaths, C-sections for low-risk pregnancies, and colorectal cancer screening and treatment. Community health workers are a part of the care teams for patients and their families who benefit from the additional support, according to the report.
- The health system will measure progress by creating benchmark goals around common conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and heart disease, as well as hospital infection rates. Officials with the system told the news outlet that MGB will measure itself against the top 20 hospitals in the U.S. to ensure it's in the top 10 percent for each category.
- The initiative is built around the ability to streamline the sharing of the right data, according to MGB officials, who shared the example of how the system is addressing an increase in infection rates after hysterectomies. MGB consulted with infection control experts, collected microbiome data on patients, changed antibiotics before surgery and other practices, and followed up to ensure there was improvement.
"This doesn't sound like rocket science, but actually, the concept of building accountability to make it better rapidly, is sort of different in healthcare. Healthcare is very dispersed," said Rachel Sisodia, MD, chief quality officer at the health system.