title: Palliative care: rapid redesign to support systemwide quality improvement.
abstract: Large-scale change techniques and rapid redesign methodologies were used to improve the quality of care delivered to patients at the end of life in a large, multihospital healthcare delivery system. By bringing key stakeholders from across the system together at a symposium to formulate the vision and critical criteria for palliative care programs, as well as to develop a flexible set of design tools, each region in the system could respond to the unique needs of its own community. Hospice length of stay for the system improved by 100% in the year after the systemwide symposium.
authors.affiliation: Ernst & Young, LLP, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. marybeth.thomas@ey.com
authors.forename: Mary Beth
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: Carroll
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Quinn
mesh_terms: D002410:Catholicism; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology; D017051:Hospice Care / Q000592:standards*; D006754:Hospital Restructuring; D016519:Hospitals, Religious / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007324:Institutional Management Teams; D007857:Leadership; D007902:Length of Stay; D015146:Midwestern United States; D009096:Multi-Institutional Systems / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D016730:Program Development; D017749:Total Quality Management / Q000458:organization & administration*