Achieving Steeep Health Care: Baylor Health Care System's Quality Improvement Journey

Winner of a 2014 Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award!

Reaching America’s true potential to deliver and receive exceptional health care will require not only an immense and concerted effort, but a fundamental change of perspective from medical providers, government officials, industry leaders, and patients alike. The Institute of Medicine set forth six primary "aims" to which every participant in the American healthcare system must contribute: health care must be safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable, and patient-centered. Presented as the acronym STEEEP, the collective realization of these goals is to reduce the burden of illness, injury, and disability in our nation. Baylor Health Care System is committed to doing its part and has adopted these six aims as its own.

Achieving STEEEP Health Care tells the story of Baylor Health Care System’s continuing quality journey, offering practical strategies and lessons in the areas of people, culture, and processes that have contributed to dramatic improvements in patient and operational outcomes. This book also discusses newer approaches to accountable care that strive to simultaneously improve the patient experience of care, improve population health, and reduce per capita costs of health care.

• Provides the perspectives of senior leaders in the areas of corporate governance, finance, and physician and nurse leadership
• Supplies strategies for developing and supporting a culture of quality, including systems and tools for data collection, performance measurement and reporting
• Includes service-line examples of successful quality improvement initiatives from reducing heart failure readmissions to coordinating cancer care
• Outlines approaches to accountable care and improved population health and well-being

David J. Ballard, MD, MSPH, PhD, FACP is senior vice president and chief quality officer for the Baylor Health Care System (BHCS), executive director of the BHCS Institute for Health Care Research and Improvement, and president and founder of the BHCS STEEEP Global Institute. Dr. Ballard is responsible for leading health care quality across BHCS. Under his leadership, BHCS has received many awards for health care quality improvement, including the 2010 Medical Group Preeminence Award of the American Medical Group Association, the 2008 National Quality Healthcare Award of the National Quality Forum, and the 2007 Leapfrog Patient-Centered Care Award.

Associate Editors:

Neil S. Fleming, PhD, ASQ CQE is vice president and chief operating officer of the BHCS STEEEP Global Institute, which capitalizes on the health care system’s successful strategies, tactics, and tools in health care quality improvement to enable other health care organizations to improve care while reducing costs. He previously served as the BHCS vice president for health care research for seven years, evaluating clinical and financial outcomes of BHCS initiatives with a major focus on health information technology, work in which he collaborated closely with Dr. Ballard.

Joel T. Allison, MHA, FACHE is president and chief executive officer of BHCS. In this role, his primary responsibility is to lead the organization in attaining its vision "to be trusted as the best place to give and receive safe, compassionate, quality health care." To do so, Mr. Allison continues developing BHCS as a patient-focused health care delivery system and clinical enterprise that emphasizes quality, safe patient care, measurable outcomes and improvement initiatives, as well as continuous medical education and health care research.

Paul B. Convery, MD, MMM served as senior vice president and the first chief medical officer for BHCS from 2006 to July 2013. Under his direction, BHCS was recognized with several important quality awards, including the 2008 National Quality Forum National Quality Healthcare Award and the 2007 Leapfrog Patient-Centered Care Award. Dr. Convery is currently serving as a senior consultant for the BHCS STEEEP Global Institute.

Rosemary Luquire, RN, PhD, NEA-BC, FAAN is senior vice president and chief nursing officer for BHCS. She joined BHCS as senior vice president and corporate chief nursing officer in 2007, the first nurse to serve in that organizational capacity. She is responsible for overseeing both strategic and operational issues that impact nursing practice and patient care across sixteen facilities.