Agenda

8:00am - 9:00am

Continental Breakfast and Meeting Registration

9:00am - 9:50am

Opening Keynote

Yosef D. Dlugacz, Ph. D.
Senior Vice President & Chief of Clinical Quality, Education & Research

Krasnoff Quality Management Institute

The role and responsibilities of the leadership and governance of health care organizations is expanding to include oversight of patient management. No longer simply providing oversight of the financial health of the institution, today's CEOs and leadership are expected to actively monitor, via measures, the clinical and organizational processes and outcomes that comply with quality standards of care. Today's leadership is doing more than managing cost of services; measures related to quality are exposing the relationship between quality care and waste, and they are responsible for waste management as well. Until recently, leadership of nursing homes and rehabilitation institutions did not feel the pressure from such quality initiatives as pay-for-performance and "never event" improvements that their colleagues in the acute care setting were wrestling with. However, with measures being developed to quantify post-acute care services (e.g., FIM score), leadership is making use of measures for benchmarking against comparable institutions and attaining the ranking of Centers of Excellence. This presentation will explain the role of the CEO and governance leadership in implementing quality processes that illustrate, through specific measures, how clinical issues are quantified for assessment and improvement.

10:00am - 10:50am

Gary Ulicny, Ph. D.
President & CEO, Shepherd Center

Organization Management: Using Clinical and Financial Information to Make Quality and Efficiency Decisions

The purpose of presentation will be to discuss the use of technology in terms of performance improvement and financial decision-making. In the post acute world, most organizations are data rich and information poor. This presentation will focus on designing databases that allow organizations to take advantage of the power of integrating clinical and business data. The presentation will address methods for developing a corporate quality culture involving management and the Board in a transparent analysis of quality data. With regulatory agencies moving toward the disclosure of information, it is important that organizations prepare for this prior to public disclosure. In addition, many organizations create performance improvement efforts that really are not related to an indicator that matters to your most important customers. Finally, the presentation will include some demonstrations of actual tools that are being used to improve both quality and business operations.

11:00am - 11:50am

Robert Burney, M.D.
Director Quality Improvement Medical Services, U.S. Department of State

Data driven change in clinical practice

Physicians typically utilize a healthcare facility but aren't employed by the facility. However, their actions profoundly affect the financial performance of the facility. No one likes change, and altering the behavior of a clinician who doesn't work for you is one of life's great challenges. The secret to success is data. When properly selected and presented, metrics can change behavior. In the absence of obvious choices, clock time is a good metric -- how long does it take. Time is easy to measure and easily understood. The economic impact of time is also quickly evident. We will present several examples for the ambulatory surgery center environment and from a global family practice (State Department) to illustrate the benefits of measurement in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of clinical care.

12:00pm - 12:50pm

Lunch

1:00pm - 1:50pm

Mike Milvain
CEO (retired), Health Systems Solutions

Getting to Quality

Everyone agrees that "quality" is important, but establishing quality means establishing a quality culture that is backed up by measurements. The challenges in establishing a quality culture in a post acute provider setting are many, most of which revolve around: it's difficult; it's time consuming and it's expensive to get underway and no one knows how to get the process started. Post acute healthcare is coming late to the quality measurement table, but there are pressures or drivers "out there" that will force providers to "get on the bandwagon" or fail. Can post acute find a balanced means of introducing new processes and quality measures? How can this be done without breaking the bank or causing the loss of key employees who already feel they are spending too little time on care delivery and too much time on paper work? Other segments of the economy have begun the process with great success, the Toyota Production Process being the most notable. Post acute healthcare providers must start down this path. To overcome the lack of an existing quality culture and to overcome the resistance of caregivers to accountability and measurement, provider management can use the criticality of maintaining compliance with the evolving Pay-for-Performance and the expected changes to the Medicare rules as a vehicle to introduce new processes, measurement systems and accountability. By involving staff in what must be done for the provider to be compliant with these emerging mandates a provider can start the journey toward establishing a quality culture through performance management.

2:00pm - 3:00pm

Round Table Discussion: Hot topics and issues

This interactive session presents the opportunity to bring real life examples and problems to the forefront for discussion.