How We’re Helping to Transform Health Care
A mother with a chronically ill child tries to remember the huge volume of medical history as she takes her son from doctor to doctor and watches the nurses scribble vital information on sticky notes. She waits and waits for someone to call her back and wishes she could check her son’s test results on-line. Worst of all she watches her child endure invasive, redundant tests because there’s no way for the doctors to get together and review her son’s medical information. Read this and other real life stories.
There is so much is at stake; yet instead of having the most up to date infrastructure, our health care system has the most outmoded. Everyone is frustrated and demanding change. Here’s what the Rhode Island Quality Institute is working to achieve:
- Leverage this state’s unique characteristics to demonstrate how the health care system can be improved through collaborative innovation
- Foster connectivity between and among the health care team and the patient
- Increase accuracy, responsiveness, and effectiveness in health care by using technology to standardize, streamline, and speed up the retrieval and delivery of patient data statewide
- Help the health care team consistently deliver care that is based on best-known practices
- Create a system that inspires and rewards improved professional performance
Our strength lies in our differences
The pioneers at The Rhode Island Quality Institute are helping reinvent health care. These are senior leaders from hospital administration, public health, business and insurance; physicians, consumers, and university educators; people with very different viewpoints—some even fierce competitors, yet they consistently reach consensus on some very tough issues. Our board and committee members dedicate countless hours, provide invaluable insight, and help fund projects that will ultimately save lives. This exceptional level of involvement allows us to develop innovative strategies that lower barriers, build alliances, and address marketplace realities that impact health care.
Meet the Board
Meet Our Partners
Meet our Contributors
Learn About Our Committees
The Building Blocks of Change
EMBRACE VARIED INTERESTS
It all started in 2001, when Sheldon Whitehouse, then-Attorney General of Rhode Island, now U.S. Senator, invited a group of high-level executives from every constituency of health care to come to the table and help transform the state’s health care system. Since then consumers have joined the cause to develop a health care system that strengthens the patient-physician relationship.
"Considering the diversity of interests and complexity of issues that surround health care delivery reform, the level of collaboration that now exists among members of the RIQI Board is quite remarkable. This is especially true when you consider the commitment it has taken for these leaders to meet regularly over the years." George Vecchione, President and C.E.O., Lifespan
GET TO YES
When challenges are this complex, solutions have to be developed in a more collaborative way. That can be difficult when you do not work together naturally. It takes healthy debate and plenty of give and take to reach consensus, and that is what we are committed to do.
“When we get up from the table it feels as if we've come away with a fair decision, something I can get really behind, something I can champion in my organization.” Marti Rosenberg, Executive Director, Ocean State Action
BE AN INCUBATOR FOR INNOVATION
The essence of health care is nurturing human life. Safety is paramount, so is caution and conservatism. To paraphrase Einstein, you can never solve a problem in the framework in which it was created. By getting a roomful of people from diverse backgrounds to look at a problem from different angles we are able to come up with more innovative solutions.
“The Rhode Island Quality Institute is one of the few places in the nation where, in one meeting, an innovative idea can be put before every major stakeholder needed to make it happen. That’s why SureScripts launched its electronic prescribing system here.” David R.Gifford, MD, Director, Rhode Island Department of Health
LEARN FROM THE BEST
While our focus is regional, our alliances extend across the country. We partner with organizations from business, education, research, government, and health care quality to maximize learning. Instead of reinventing the wheel we apply what already has been proven effective so we can accelerate the process for adopting strategies that will benefit everyone with better health care.
“Being a non-partisan organization allows representatives from both parties to lend support to these vital initiatives. The transformation of the health care system is a national priority whatever side you stand on.” Hon. Donald Carcieri, Governor Rhode Island
GAPS
We all want safer, more effective health care. That’s why hospitals, insurers, and government have initiated their own quality programs. This however can produce duplication of effort and fragmented communication. We achieve so much more by uniting behind a common cause. This is why one of our chief objectives is to help bring everyone together so we can help coordinate and leverage these individual efforts.
“By focusing on improving safety in every Rhode Island Intensive Care Unit (ICU), we stand to save hundreds of lives each year, not to mention the millions of dollars we’ll be saving by reducing complications.” Cong. P. Kennedy
PROVIDE THE RIGHT TOOLS
After literally drowning in administrative paperwork, the health care system is finally poised to enter the 21st century. Technology isn’t a cure-all but it can help cut the overhead costs of managing patient care, reduce or eliminate mistakes, and potentially allow health care providers to spend more time with patients. Learn more
“Look what happens when physicians recognize common interests; we improve the quality and efficiency of care. The state’s largest physician groups are partnering with a selected software vendor to help medical practices acquire electronic health records and connect with a Statewide Health Care Information Exchange.” Mark D. Jacobs, MD, President and CEO Coastal Medical
- Action-oriented innovation
- Consensus decision-making
- Top-level commitment
- Inclusiveness
- Ethical leadership
- Accountability
- Accessibility
- Transparency
- Improved value
- Less waste
Q. How might what RIQI is doing help more people get better access to quality care?
A. By reducing unnecessary waste in the system, making it easier to deliver the right care at the right time and avoiding medical errors, heath-care delivery will be more efficient. If less money is spent on things like duplicate tests and avoidable hospitalization, more can be spent on providing access to care. We will be able to help redirect the flow of funds to cover more people.
Q. Why is changing the health care system taking so long?
A. Rapid improvement would be ideal but something this big and complex isn’t simple to change and many of the things we’re trying to initiate are new to health care. We’ve been waiting for the right technology. Now it is available. The more people who participate in the solution, the faster things will happen.
Q. When will there be a personal health record and how will it work?
A. Personal health records will play a very important role in health care for all of us and our families. The Rhode Island Quality Institute is in the early stages of coordinating personal health record efforts statewide. The goal is to assure that every Rhode Islander has a record that allows them easy access to their health information no matter where it is located. You will control access to your information and be able to add information, which may be important for your caregivers to know.
