Quality and Patient Safety at UAB Medicine

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Quality and Patient Safety

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At UAB Medicine, we know that choosing where to get health care is a big decision. People have different reasons for trusting certain places with their health. It’s important to make this choice based on good information. Hospitals and clinics that give the best care work hard to make sure patients get the right treatment, at the right time, in the right way. This helps everyone get better results.

UAB Medicine has a mission, vision, values, and goals that help our staff provide top-quality care. We want to go beyond what you and your family expect from us.

What makes health care quality good?

There’s a special group called the National Academy of Medicine that helps lead and improve health care in America. In 2001, it shared ideas about what a great health care system should look like, including six important things that lead to high-quality health care. We can remember these goals with the acronym STEEP, where each letter stands for something special:

Safe: Health care should not harm patients.

Timely: Patients shouldn’t have to wait too long for care.

Effective: Care should be based on the best medical knowledge.

Efficient: Care should use resources wisely, so everything works well.

Patient-centered: Care should focus on the needs and preferences of patients.

When health care meets all these goals, we consider it to be high-quality!

Understanding quality in health care

When we talk about quality in health care, we mean several important things:

1. Focus on patients: This means listening to patients and their families to understand what they need and value when they receive care. It’s about treating people with respect and paying attention to what’s important to them.

2. Fairness: This means making sure that everyone, no matter who they are, can get good health care without being treated better or worse because of personal characteristics like race, background, or wealth.

3. Wise use of resources: This means using our time, money, and other resources carefully, so that everyone gets the best care possible.

Why measuring quality is important

Measuring quality is important because it helps us understand how well health care is being provided. Even though there are many ways to measure quality, experts don’t always agree on which ones are the best. However, measuring quality is still important, because it helps hospitals and doctors find out where they are doing well and where they need to improve.

At UAB Medicine, we try to use clear and useful information to compare ourselves with other hospitals. This comparison helps us see how we’re doing in providing care that meets national standards. We look at reports from organizations such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Centers for Disease Control, and Vizient to understand our quality better.

By measuring and comparing our quality, we can take steps to make our health care even better for everyone.

Click on the icons below for more information on how UAB Medicine is working hard to deliver quality health care.

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Choosing a doctor can seem tricky, but it doesn’t have to be that hard!

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Measures of Safe Care

Doctors and hospitals work to keep you safe. They try to prevent any harm that could happen to patients while they are getting care.

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Measures of Timely and Effective Care

It’s important to get the right care when you need it. Your health care team should help you quickly, so you receive timely care.

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Measures of Efficient Care

Good health care means using the right tests and treatments that you really need. It’s also about not doing tests or treatments that aren’t needed.

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Measures of Patient-Centeredness

Good health care is about taking care of you as a special person. This means that the doctor listens to what you need and respects what you want.

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