Seeking Quality Cardiac Care

Quality improvement in cardiac care.

Quality improvement in cardiac care has made considerable progress over the past 30 years. During that period, there has been the development of multi-institutional databases to monitor outcomes following cardiothoracic surgery. These databases initially began using only volume and unadjusted operative (30-day) mortality as outcome criteria. There has been a progressive increase in their sophis...

Cardiac care quality indicators: a new hospital-level quality improvement initiative for cardiac care in Canada.

Health system stakeholders at different levels are focused more than ever on improvements to quality of care. With heart disease continuing to be a top health issue for Canadians, quality improvement initiatives aimed at improving cardiac care are increasingly important. The Cardiac Care Quality Indicators are one such initiative, with the goal of supporting cardiac care centres in their qualit...

Improving quality in British primary care: seeking the right balance.

Seeking value in pharmaceutical care: balancing quality, access and efficiency.

Healthcare remains a dominant issue for Canadians. Central to the debate is the dynamic tension among the value, accessibility and affordability of drugs. Simply put, innovative drugs improve health and economic outcomes for individuals and populations. As a result, providers and patients increasingly demand, and expect, these benefits; utilization and expenditures increase. The management chal...

Quality improvement in cardiac critical care

Our quality improvement program began in 2004 to improve cardiac surgery outcomes. Early tracheal extubation in the cardiovascular intensive unit was utilized as a multidisciplinary driver for the quality improvement program. Continuous improvement in the rate of early extubation to drive multidisciplinary quality improvement in cardiac critical care correlated with decreased mortality, morbidi...