This challenging and highly practical book draws on the findings from an international study designed to help practitioners and researchers understand the factors and processes that enable healthcare organisations in the United States and Europe to achieve - and sustain - high quality services for their users. The in-depth case-studies from seven leading hospitals give an international, evidence-based outlook that focuses on both the organisational and cultural processes of quality improvement. Implication for research and practice are considered, and a checklist of possible challenges has been drawn up to help identify any 'gaps' in initiatives. Healthcare policy makers and shapers including hospital chief executives and NHS directors will find this book enlightening, as will healthcare quality improvement and service development researchers and professionals. Clinicians with an interest in quality improvement will also find much of interest.

Presents the results of a two-year study that analyzes how patient safety practices are being adopted by U.S. health care providers, examines hospital experiences with a patient safety culture survey, and assesses patient safety outcomes trends. In case studies of four U.S. communities, researchers collected information on the dynamics of local patient safety activities and on adoption of safe practices by hospitals.

This book updates the policy context of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) patient safety initiative; documents the current priorities and activities undertaken; and assesses contributions of funded projects and dissemination actions to support adoption of evidence-based safe practices.It discusses implications for future AHRQ policy, programming, and research; suggests ways to strengthen AHRQ activities.It evaluates progress of the patient safety initiative led by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), focusing on how the current experiences of AHRQ and its funded projects can be used to strengthen subsequent program activities.