Dr. Louis Rosenfeld
Quality is job one at upcoming Improvement Fair
All staff and faculty are invited to the 1999 VUMC Improvement Fair, to be held Oct. 14, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the learning center on the second floor of the Round Wing.
There will be food, entertainment, videos, information booths and story-board presentations and numerous prizes will be raffled off throughout the day.
The fair is intended to help spread news of improvement activities happening across the medical center. This year’s fair will also serve to help communicate the latest national patient care accreditation standards. In July 2000, Vanderbilt University Hospital is scheduled for its next routine inspection by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).
The Improvement Fair is sponsored by the Center for Clinical Improvement, with assistance from the learning center.
“JCAHO in recent years has come to focus on process improvement,” said Doris Quinn, director of improvement education and measurement. “Their approach is quite akin to the values that we’ve been promoting at VUMC to help create a patient-focused organizational culture more suited to today’s demands. The fair is a means both to highlight vital compliance issues and reinforce the VUMC credo, mission and vision.”
October is quality month. The last VUMC Improvement Fair was a well attended event held in October 1997 under a huge white tent pitched on the lawn behind Light Hall.
This year’s event will feature a county fair theme. As visitors circulate among festive booths dealing with various JCAHO standards, they’ll earn raffle tickets by correctly answering compliance questions posed by the booth attendants. Plans for a greased-pig contest were indefinite as of press time.
Story-board presentations can be entered in the fair by anyone having a story to tell about any VUMC improvement effort, whether involving patient care or not. Prizes will be awarded in several categories. The deadline to enter a story board is October 12.
For more information contact the center for clinical improvement at 322-3366.