AHRQ - Innovations Exchange

The Health Care Innovations Exchange is an AHRQ program designed to support health care professionals in sharing and adopting innovations that improve the delivery of care to patients. Explore this site to find innovative strategies and quality-related tools, learn how to improve your organization's ability to innovate and adopt new ideas, and interact with innovators and adopters.

Browse the Innovations Exchange by Subject

Find Innovations and QualityTools classified by disease or clinical category, patient population, stage of care, setting of care, and more.

What's New at AHRQ Health Care Innovations Exchange

August 04, 2008 (Missed an issue of What's New? Visit the Archive.)

This issue features innovations and QualityTools designed to enhance patient safety. The innovations describe programs at local clinics and hospitals aimed at reducing medical and medication errors. The QualityTools present the latest patient safety information from national health care organizations.

This Issue's Featured Innovations

Common Cause Analysis: A Hospital's Review of Vulnerabilities Where Common Themes Are Identified, Prioritized, and Addressed
To highlight system-wide vulnerabilities identified through root cause analysis (RCA), Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has established an annual review of all findings. This review, known as common cause analysis or CCA, identifies themes that arise from the many recommended changes (action items) produced by RCA findings.

Reconciliation of Patient and Provider Medication Lists Reduces Discrepancies and Enhances Medication Safety in Physician Clinics
A process enabling patients and providers to reconcile two medication lists—one maintained by patients either manually or on a Web-based personal health record and one maintained by providers on an electronic medical record—improved medication list accuracy in the outpatient setting.

Voluntary Error Reporting Program Focusing on Systems Issues Increases Reporting and Contributes to Reduction in Liability Claims at Outpatient Clinic
A hospital outpatient clinic's confidential, voluntary error reporting system, which focuses on identifying faulty systems instead of individual mistakes, has substantially increased error reports and has been associated with a reduction in liability claims.

Go to this issue's contents.| Go to all innovations by posted date.

Featured QualityTools

Read about the latest patient safety goals from the Joint Commission, hospital survey results on the culture of patient safety, and methods of disclosing medical errors to patients.

Go to this issue's QualityTools.| Go to all QualityTools by posted date.

Last updated: August 04, 2008.

Access all the presentations (transcripts and slides) from the May 12 Webinar: Using AHRQ's Health Care Innovations Exchange to Take on the Challenges of Care Delivery

•	New Industry Perspective: Understanding Different Models of Innovation: An Interview with Hal Stern, Senior Vice President at Sun Microsystems, Inc.
•	Read about ways to cultivate innovation and overcome challenges to adopting new ideas.

•	Connect and collaborate with people who have similar interests and goals.

Register now for the AHRQ September 2008 Annual Conference: Promoting Quality… Partnering for Change.
Bethesda, MD. Plan to attend the Innovations Exchange Lunch and Learn Session on September 9th.

Healthcare 411 Podcast: AHRQ Unveils a New Forum for Exchanging Innovative Health Care Ideas
with Editorial Board member Paul Plsek.

AHRQ Funding Opportunity Announcement: Researching Implementation and Change while Improving Quality.

The Health Care Innovations Exchange benefits from the guidance and input of a multidisciplinary group of highly qualified medical professionals.

Rick Rader, MD
Director, Morton J. Kent Habilitation Center, Orange Grove Center;
Editor in chief, EP Magazine;
President, American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry Board

Visit all expert biographies.