Sunday, October 26, 2008

The Jefferson School of Health Policy and Population Health

I wanted to give our readers an update on the progress of the new Jefferson School of Health Policy and Population Health. I am happy to report that we have successfully brought on board a great leader for the Masters Program in Health Care Quality and Safety, namely Dr Susan DesHarnais from Penn State Medical School at Hershey. Susan is an accomplished scholar and teacher who will be responsible for this program in the new school. We have finished our new school bylaws which we hope will be approved by the Board of the University at their winter meeting. We have begun to sculpt the content and sequence of the key courses across several of the Masters Programs and they are coming together nicely. We have accessed additional space on our campus to house many of our new recruits. Our new book on healthcare governance will be out very shortly and we will add this book to our other faculty edited texts, currently in use in the program.We are about to confirm a new communications director and very shortly, we will be publishing our first of many new brochures. For now, please visit our expanding web site at www.jefferson.edu/jshpph/. Thanks again for your support and I sure would like to hear from you. What do you think of our efforts to date?? Where do you think our initial class roster will come from?? What would YOU put in a Masters program in quality and safety?? Thanks for our support, DAVID NASH

Monday, October 13, 2008

Preventing Line Sepsis

I recently had the opportunity to chair an important expert panel in Washington DC concerned with reducing the occurence of line sepsis. The COOK corporation gave an unrestricted educational grant to our department to organize and facilitate this panel. There were representatives from many major national organizations, hospitals, and policy groups. We explored all the issues and were treated to two spectacular summaries by former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill and the key ABC News Flight Safety correspondent, John Nance. The bottom line---it's the culture of the organization!!! You can lead a doc to water but you can't, apparently, make him follow agreed upon, evidence based guideline of care, without paying sufficient attention to the culture. We have to give docs, and others, good reasons to follow the guidelines and give them good information about how they might do a better job. Slogans, exhortations, and the like, will not work. Culture beats technology every time. The day after the panel we held a press conference at the National Press Club and we got some outstanding attention from both the lay and medical press. Be on the lookout for our materials, especially at US NEWS and WORLD REPORT. See the links posted here too. As always, I am interested in your views. How are you preventing line sepsis today?? DAVID NASH