National Quality Forum Action Teams Address Healthcare Workplace Violence and Patient Partnership on Designing Health Systems
Washington, DC – In response to the National Quality Partners™ Leadership Consortium 2019 priorities for action, National Quality Forum (NQF) convened Action Teams of experts from NQF Member organizations to recommend strategies on two important issues: preventing healthcare workplace violence; and, encouraging collaboration with patients, families, and caregivers as equal partners in co-designing healthcare systems that improve quality of care and the patient experience.
The Leadership Consortium is committed to influencing meaningful, lasting change on the nation’s highest priority healthcare issues. Each year, this program brings a diverse range of perspectives from NQF Member organizations to the table, including patient partners, clinicians, health plans, and quality improvement experts to deliberate and identify three top healthcare priorities for the following year.
The National Quality Partners™ (NQP) Action Team to Prevent Healthcare Workplace Violence brought together 28 NQF Member organizations, representing health systems, patient advocacy organizations, federal agencies, payers, professional societies, quality improvement, measurement and research organizations, and home and community-based services.
Together, they tackled a persistent and often overlooked problem: according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) 71% percent of all nonfatal workplace violence occurs in healthcare settings—and healthcare workers are four times more likely to experience violence at work compared to private industry employees.
The Action Team developed an Issue Brief (PDF) that identifies key strategies to support healthcare organizations and community stakeholders in the prevention, reporting, and reduction of healthcare workplace violence. It includes detailed strategies aligned with actions to standardize definitions of workplace violence and data collection, analyze and share data, invest in safety, and collaboration to scale efforts across stakeholders.
The National Quality Partners™ (NQP) Action Team to Co-Design Patient-Centered Health Systems identified ways to help healthcare organizations embrace a true culture of co-design where patients, families, and caregivers are equal partners in improving care quality and patient safety. Despite evidence that co-design results in better quality and safety, many barriers still exist that make it difficult for healthcare organizations to practice collaborative healthcare design.
The Action Team brought together 29 NQF Member organizations representing patient and caregiver partners, health systems, quality improvement organizations, professional societies, payers, research organizations, federal agencies, and other diverse healthcare perspectives.
They developed an Issue Brief (PDF) that includes strategies aimed to: empower healthcare organizations, community stakeholders, and patients, families, and caregivers to prioritize and invest in co-design; expand awareness to foster successful and sustainable co-design initiatives; recruit diverse and representative patient voices; and, measure and share organizational impacts and outcomes that result from co-design.
These two sets of important recommendations illustrate the value of National Quality Partners™ as a forum for diverse healthcare stakeholders to connect and provide thought leadership to achieve national quality goals. NQP builds upon NQF’s role as a national convener that facilitates action-oriented initiatives to drive meaningful and lasting change for patients and their families.
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About National Quality Forum
The National Quality Forum (NQF) works with members of the healthcare community to drive measurable health improvements together. NQF is a not-for-profit, membership-based organization that gives all healthcare stakeholders a voice in advancing quality measures and improvement strategies that lead to better outcomes and greater value. Learn more at www.qualityforum.org.
