Quality Land

Mª Luisa de la Puente
 

In the world of healthcare, quality is everyone's business and it covers everything. This assertion, generically true but with little operational, is coming in stronger in recent years. This concretion to a specific context is driven by the necessary adaptation to the escalation of healthcare costs, the economic context, the influence of the business world to obtain more performance from resources, the demands of its clients or professional discomfort due to the little recognition of what it is.

Taking action in patient-centred care

Nacho Vallejo

 

Frame of the series New Amsterdam

Talking about patient-centred care in our healthcare organizations may sound hollow or a tradition of good intentions. There are very attractive topics such as "patients first". In any case, putting patients first, abandoning traditional medical paternalism, has at times become an excuse to configure a variety of intentions that risk being left in symbolic speeches. I believe that one of the reasons that don't allow progress in this task is the need to specify it in actions that the ordinary professional can understand and carry out, checking its benefits and its results.

Cross-functional units, a challenge within reach

Jordi Varela

Editor

In 2003, a study led by Chris Ham observed that for eleven clinical situations related to chronicity and age, the NHS allocated up to three and a half times more hospital beds than Kaiser Permanente. This was such a surprising result that it generated great admiration for the European health managers by the Californian insurer, especially considering that, according to the researchers themselves, the success of KP lies in the transversal integration of its services, the promotion of self-care, the active role of community nurses and the involvement of physicians to achieve maximum resolution of problems in the framework of primary care.

Time in the gaze

Soledad Delgado
 

I often find myself intensely focused on the keyboard, pounding the keys quickly so as not to leave any detail out, striving to relay a very complete medical history - many times so complete that several chapters of a book could be written on subjects as trivial as a simple toothache. Speeding up to the last paragraph all the while noticing the ongoing growth of the patients’ list.

The risks of doing the wrong things

José Joaquín Mira
 

The New Yorker

In all disciplines, we find some questions in search of an answer that stands out above all other questions, but without finding an adequate solution. The correct treatment, for the right person and at the right time (therapeutic adequacy), is one of those holy grails that affect, in this case, health disciplines.