Minnesota Healthcare      Quality Professionals

Return to Newsletters Table of Contents BETWEEN THE LINES: Message From the President By Carol Barnhart Welcome to a new year of activities with MHQP! In June I assumed the President’s position from Beth Green. A special Thank You to Beth for leading our organization with enthusiasm and energy! Under Beth’s leadership the Board was most productive! We reviewed and updated the Bylaws, improved the management of the membership lists, explored enhanced communication through email, presented 3 excellent educational sessions, instituted a regular newsletter, and resurrected our Web site which, unbeknownst to us, went down due to missed communications during our leadership changes. Thank you, Beth, for a great year and for continuing to serve as advisor! Thank you also to our hardworking Board members who have continued from last year. Despite busy schedules, they continue to be wonderful contributors to MHQP and make its existence possible! The Board met on August 17, 2004 to firm up plans for the coming year. We plan 3 educational sessions spaced throughout the year. Dates and topics will be announced through the newsletter. We plan to continue primary communication through email as it is timely and saves the organization significant dollars. Please remember to email Linda Setterlund at linda.setterlund@icsi.org if you have a change so that you can continue to get our communications. This year the Board will be focusing on improving the process of updating, enhancing, and maintaining the MHQP Web site. More details to follow in the next newsletter. One thing that all members could do to contribute to our organization is to email quality news from your worksite. For example, not everyone works with JCAHO or CMS. It would be very helpful to receive updates on the latest regulations or requirements to put in the newsletter. If you or your institution are involved in a successful project managing improvement on patient safety, that would be news to share. Have you read good books lately or run across any useful Web sites that you could recommend? Please let us know by emailing Trisch Beilke at beilke.patricia@mayo.edu.   President’s Choice: Book Review Process Improvement : A Resource for Healthcare. Prepared by Lee Elliott and Donald G. Sluti, PhD. The book begins with a discussion of the management philosophy necessary to implement and sustain a program of quality improvement. It then moves on to SPC tools to help you determine how well your process is functioning. There is a section devoted to process improvement tools on “how to” make a process work better. The final section contains related tools to understand and refine a process. The book has a number of exercises available to help you understand the topic being discussed. This book is a primer for anyone and a good resource for those new to Quality and Process Improvement.   It is important that all members of MHQP know you are invited to attend Board Meetings. If you have questions, feel free to contact the Board Members. Quality Line and Between the Lines are designed to provide members information on vital issues in Minnesota healthcare, trends, CQI methodologies, legislation and news about our organization. Published quarterly in Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. Editor: Patricia Beilke Beilke.Patricia@mayo.edu