RECENT ARTICLES AND PUBLICATIONS

H&HN Online Article by Blue Ribbon Panel Work Group Chairs

"Tools for Exceptional Governance," a recent H&HN Online article, includes the key recommendations from the new report of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Health Care Governance. Authored by Donald C. Wegmiller, Kevin M. Fickenscher, and Douglas D. Hawthorne, the article describes the panel's work in examining the purpose and function of boards of health care organizations and the critical issues facing them. The panel's report, Building an Exceptional Board: Effective Practices for Health Care Governance, was recently released as part of the monograph series by the Center for Healthcare Governance and is available on the Center's web site. The report contains the panel's findings and recommendations as well as an appendix of tools and resources. The panel was convened in 2006 by HRET and funded by Russell Reynolds Associates and the Center for Healthcare Governance.

Read the H&HN Online article.

Find out more about the BRP report.

UPCOMING EVENTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

Action Learning Labs Series: Creating a High Performance Medicine Strategy

On April 26-27, in Boston, HRET, the AHA Quality Center, and Partners HealthCare will host a 1½-day Action Learning Lab for leadership teams in quality and patient safety. The lab will give participants a unique opportunity to observe, ask questions, and interact with both senior leaders and frontline innovators who have demonstrated real results in quality improvement. Senior executives and experts from Partners will present their quality improvement tools and discuss their progress to date.

The program at Partners will be the first in a series of three Action Learning Labs in 2007 that will highlight outstanding improvements in quality and patient safety by three different health care organizations. The series is a collaboration between HRET and the AHA Quality Center, with support from AHA Solutions and Stockamp & Associates.

Click here for information and registration.

ACHI Web Conference - Breathing Easy in Class: A Hospital-School Partnership for Asthma Management

Join ACHI on Thursday, April 12, at 1:00 CT for a Web conference presented by Jeff Byrne, program director of the Asthma Center at St. John's Riverside Hospital, part of the St. John's Riverside Hospital/Yonkers Schools Partnership for Asthma Management. Mr. Byrne will describe components of the program, including equipment donations and training school nurses to administer treatment. He will also stimulate discussion around issues that need to be addressed to adapt this program for other communities. In this session, participants will:

• Understand factors that need to be addressed to effectively manage and treat children with asthma.
• Learn components of a successful hospital-school partnership and how it can be adapted in other communities.

Information and registration are available here.

Romana Hasnain-Wynia to Present at ACHI and California Endowment Conferences

Romana Hasnain-Wynia, HRET vice president, research, will be presenting "Hospital Language Services for Patients with Limited English Proficiency: Results from a National Survey" at the Association for Community Health Improvement (ACHI) National Conference in New Orleans March 7-9. She will also be speaking on this topic at the California Endowment's "Building Culturally Competent Health Systems in California" conference, at a panel session on HRET's work on race and ethnicity data collection, in Los Angeles March 28-29. For more information on this topic click here.

HRET FELLOWSHIPS

Cross-Fellowship Scholarship Opportunities Offered by HRET

HRET, with support from Hospira, is offering a new scholarship opportunity for health care teams seeking to improve quality of patient care through the use of culturally competent and safe care practices. This first-ever joint fellowship will allow team members to use what they have learned through the program at their own hospitals and health care organizations.

Each team member will advance the work of their joint project by participating as a fellow in one of the 2007-2008 classes of Patient Safety Leadership Fellowship and Cultural Competence Leadership Fellowship to be launched in April 2007.

Eligibility requirements:

• A cross-disciplinary team, clinical or non-clinical from the same organization
• Demonstrated experience or interest in development and implementation of patient safety and cultural competence initiatives
• Letter of support from a member of the senior leadership or board of the team applicants' organization

For more information on application process and scholarship requirement, contact Shawn Foster at 312-422-2610. Enrollment is now open. Team applications will be considered through April 15, 2007. For more information on HRET fellowships click here.