Schwimmer Script Blog
Momentum to Help New Moms and Babies Must Continue
There’s long been talk about the need to improve outcomes for New Jersey mothers and their babies. Now we’re seeing that talk turn into action. In the past 20 months, new laws and initiatives have advanced to improve maternal-child health, and to address troubling racial inequities. Here are just some of the new laws: Medicaid…Read More…
Is ‘Medicare for All’ The New ‘Repeal and Replace’?
After the 2016 election, I wrote a blog cautioning then President-Elect Trump and the Incoming Congress not to rush to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. I urged our nation’s elected leaders to proceed in a thoughtful way that reflected the trust the electorate had placed in them. I argued that they should work…Read More…
Legacy Take Five Interviews Highlight Health Leaders’ Vision for Tomorrow’s Health System
Our Take Five interviews share insight from health care leaders making a difference in the state and the nation. Take Five is one of the most popular features of our newsletter and explores topics critical to our mission to improve the safety, quality, and affordability of health care for everyone. Recently we’ve run what…Read More…
Quality Institute Outlines Five Key Principles For Price Transparency to Succeed
Only in health care do Americans routinely purchase services and then learn about the price weeks or months later. For too many Americans, opening a medical bill is a moment of trepidation. At the Quality Institute, we’ve supported transparency from our earliest days — in quality and in cost. So we support the parts…Read More…
Tackling Racial Bias in Health Care
We titled our Spring All Council Conference last week, “Racial Bias in Health Care: A Diagnosis and Treatment Plan.” Our audience — indeed, all of us in the room — did not always find the topic easy. No one who went into health care to help others wants to learn that their own biases could…Read More…
Looking Back, and Ahead, After Twenty Years Of Health Care Transparency
It’s been twenty years since the Institute of Medicine released To Err Is Human and shined a light on the need to improve quality and safety in health care. Both the National Quality Forum (NQF) and the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute started twenty years ago. Both organizations take a unique multi-stakeholder approach to…Read More…
Have You Had The ‘Conversation of Your Life?’
At the Quality Institute, we’re changing the culture around end-of-life care. In libraries and senior centers, town halls and houses of worship, parks and colleges, we’re bringing people together for education — and for thoughtful conversations that provide clarity to loved ones. We started Conversation of Your Life (COYL) in 2014 with three mayors and today…Read More…
Pioneering Midwife Joins Quality Institute Board
We are thrilled that Linda Sloan Locke, CNM, MPH, LSW, has joined the Quality Institute’s Board of Directors, and we are so pleased to introduce her to our members. Linda’s experience and passion for maternal child health make her a valuable addition to our leadership. As you can read in the Take Five below, Linda…Read More…
Extend Medicaid Coverage for New Moms
Recently I was invited to share testimony in Trenton on a package of bills to improve outcomes for new mothers and their babies. I provided testimony to both the Assembly and the Senate Health, Human Services, and Senior Citizens Committees. As the state explores ways to reduce maternal deaths, one overarching change seems absolutely necessary:…Read More…
Share Your Real-World Case Studies of Improving Quality
I urge anyone committed to improving health care quality to read this case study from Texas Children’s Hospital’s Pavilion for Women, which outlines how the organization reduced the use of episiotomies by more than 60 percent in five years. Today, these surgical incisions — which increase complications and maternal deaths — are used in just 3.4…Read More…