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• Lists That Work: The Healthcare Leader's Role in Implementation
  This article describes the experiences of several health care organizations in implementing checklists to improve patient safety, and the critical role leaders play in supporting this work.
• The Leader's Role in Medical Device Safety
  This article provides recommendations and resources for improving medical device safety, including guidance for leaders, who are in a key position to ensure that medical device purchasing decisions engage core staff in the process, incorporating their input and device use experience to inform the process.
• Counties of Interest: Achieving Better- or Worse-Than-Expected Health Outcomes: IHI 90-Day R&D Project Final Summary Report
  The intent of this project was to identify counties in the US with health outcomes significantly better or worse than one would expect based in their socioeconomic status. Once these counties were identified, we sought to understand what drivers may have led to those results.
• Enhancing the Effectiveness Effectiveness of Follow-Up Phone Calls to Improve Transitions in Care: Three Decision Points
  This study used a nonsystematic review of the literature focused on the use of telephone follow-up to improve postdischarge processes and reduce avoidable readmissions, and examined use of such calls among organizations participating in the STate Action on Avoidable Rehospitalizations (STAAR) initiative.
• The Colorado Beacon Consortium: Strengthening the Capacity for Health Care Delivery Transformation in Rural Communities
  This case study by of the Colorado Beacon Consortium describes how physicians, hospitals, and other care providers in seven predominantly rural counties managed to build the health information technology capacity needed to exchange health data and transform clinical care.
• Reduction in Medication Errors in Hospitals Due to Adoption of Computerized Provider Order Entry Systems
  The findings of this study suggest that computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems can substantially reduce the frequency of medication errors in inpatient acute-care settings; however, it is unclear whether this translates into reduced harm for patients.
• STAAR Issue Brief: The Effect of Medicare Readmissions Penalties on Hospitals’ Efforts to Reduce Readmissions
  To understand the impact of the Medicare financial penalties for hospitals that have higher than expected rates of 30-day readmissions for select conditions, this Issue Brief synthesizes perspectives from leaders of state hospital associations, quality improvement organizations, and hospitals representing a range of performance and experiences in readmissions and their reduction.
• Healthy Employees, Lower Premiums and Costs
  Employers, providers, and health plans have a new shared aim of collaboratively working together to improve the health of employees and reduce health care costs.
• Recasting Readmissions by Placing the Hospital Role in Community Context
  The authors suggest that it is advantageous to view readmissions within a broader systems and community context that effectively engages all stakeholders to cooperatively improve outcomes.
• Sampling Considerations in Health Care Improvement
  This article introduces concepts related to sampling for improvement and gives specific guidance on determining a useful sample size for improvement projects in hospitals and health systems.