Quality & Outcomes

Quality & Outcomes

Quality healthcare is doing the right thing for the right patient, at the right time, in the right way to achieve the best possible results.

– The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

At Spectrum Healthcare Partners, this is what we strive to do every day, with every patient encounter.

Which is why we have a comprehensive quality program in place that continuously evaluates how our patients do as a result of the care we provide and identifies ways we can do things better. We look at such measures as:

  • Patient safety
  • Patient satisfaction with the care they receive
  • Functional and clinical outcomes
  • The appropriate use of healthcare resources
  • The cost and value of the care we provide

In fact, each of our specialty divisions has its own quality program, with many metrics benchmarked against rigorous national standards.

We hold ourselves to a high standard

As a physician-owned organization, Spectrum holds itself to particularly high quality standards. We think it’s vital to demonstrate our quality not only to patients but also to the hospitals that contract with us. After all, their trust in our capabilities to keep their patients safe is the foundation of our business.

What’s more, Spectrum’s Quality Committee—with representatives from each of our specialty divisions—reports directly to the Spectrum board of directors. This underscores how seriously we take our commitment to quality care, starting at the top.

Patient satisfaction is important to us

At Spectrum Healthcare Partners we know you have many options for your healthcare experience. We thank you for choosing us and value your feedback. Within our orthopedic and outpatient vascular interventional radiology practices we utilize a patient satisfaction vendor called NRC Health that assists us in collecting important patient feedback. Within a few days of your visit to our center, you can expect an email, text message, or call asking for feedback (the method of contact is dependent on information you elect to provide to us). We review all of the ratings and comments submitted and review frequently at our quality committees to see how we can make improvements.

If you have additional feedback or need to discuss your experience, we invite you to contact Dawn MacLearn, our Patient Experience Coordinator.

Continuous quality improvement: Our journey

Spectrum Healthcare Partners believes that quality improvement never stops. There is always a way to become better and improve patient outcomes and experiences. With that in mind, we are focusing our quality improvement work in 2021 on implementing the Institute for Healthcare Quality’s Quadruple Aim as well as the High Reliability Organization Principles. The Quadruple Aim is: improving patient outcomes, reducing costs, improving the provider experience, and improving population health. The High Reliability Organization principles are: reluctance to simplify, commitment to resilience, deference to expertise, sensitivity to operations, and a preoccupation with failure.

What does that all mean? It means that if we focus on listening to people who are close to the work, use our data wisely, listen to our patients, and proactively look for points of failure, we can improve safety and make the experience positive for everyone involved.

Here are some examples of the work we are doing this year:

  • Radiation Oncology: active participation in RO-ILS, allowing the radiation oncologists to see trends in patient safety and prevent harm.
  • Pathology: improving how critical lab values are communicated back to the patient and ordering provider
  • Radiology: improving start times for radiologic procedures (no one likes running late!), improving turn around time (the amount of time your x-ray, CT scan, or MRI takes from when the image is taken to the results are returned to you)
  • Anesthesiology: increasing the use of regional anesthesia (nerve blocks) to reduce the amount of pain medication needed after surgery
  • Orthopedics: improving the patient experience from the moment of check in to any follow up needed after your visit

Questions?

If you would like to know more about Spectrum’s quality initiatives and outcomes, we’re happy to share information and insights. Simply call us at 207-482-7800, or send us an email.

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