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Implementation Outcomes

Introduction

The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, a 20-hospital health system, was faced with the challenges of increasing quality, decreasing costs, managing resources more effectively, and finding a method to foster system collaboration and integration in the provision of patient care. The Transformational Model was chosen by the system to be the conceptual framework that would:

Standardize the key components of patient care necessary to accomplish organizational goals by:

• Identifying changes in thinking that need to occur in patient care to meet future challenges;
• Defining key standards for patient care to be used across the system;
• Defining the clinical outcomes that will be measured across the system (quality, service, financial);
• Describing basic competencies for care providers within the system (joint initiative with Human Resources).

Develop the staff to meet our future challenges by:

• Identifying barriers to future success;
• Developing necessary educational and development programs (joint initiative with Human Resources);
• Providing a "map" for organizational development from reactive to proactive and high performing levels.

Organize and develop patient care initiatives by:

• Serving as a basis for the patient care strategic plan;
• Helping to prioritize patient care projects;
• Identifying areas of duplication and cost savings;
• Identifying areas of best practice.

Results From System Measurements

In order to determine the efficacy of using the Transformational Model within the system, a brief comparative analysis between hospitals that were using the Transformational Model and those that were not was done to look at outcomes related to quality and cost over the last year. This retrospective data showed that in user hospitals:

We cannot assume that these differences in the system hospitals and the work units were due entirely to use of the Transformational Model because these studies were not controlled, and there were many variables that could have affected these outcomes. Since this data was collected, other outcomes indicators have been put into place to collect controlled data for research purposes, which will be reported at a later date. It should be noted that although we have achieved these results, we cannot guarantee that they can be replicated in other organizations without further study.

For more information regarding outcomes data, please contact us.