Today the Quality Institute released a Guidance Document outlining a strategy for New Jersey to create and retain a resilient and diverse health care workforce for today and for the future.   The Document is based on research of existing health care workforce strategic plans and data collection programs across the country as well as…Read More…

For more than a year, we have worked with many of our Quality Institute members and community partners from around New Jersey to create the Maternity Action Plan (MAP), which we just released. The MAP outlines a path forward to turn the vision of Nurture NJ into reality. The goal is to make New Jersey…Read More…

In recent weeks, the Quality Institute has accomplished significant work on issues that advance our mission to improve health care quality, safety, and affordability. You may have read the two significant reports we published this month, viewed our article on telehealth, or seen our press coverage. I nonetheless want to bring all this critical work…Read More…

Written by Kate Shamszad, MS, MPH, Director of the Quality Institute’s Medicaid Policy Center (MPC)   If we want to improve maternal infant health in New Jersey and address unacceptable racial inequities, we must look to midwifery care as a model and potential solution. As outlined in the report, Delivering Better Care: Midwifery Practice in…Read More…

In New Jersey, the health insurance market for small businesses is in peril. Enrollment is dropping and premiums are rising. In 2022 alone, premiums jumped an alarming average rate of 10.4 percent. In 2005, nearly 1 million employees of small businesses and their families had health insurance through the New Jersey’s small group market. Today,…Read More…

Each year, we share all that we have accomplished together and our goals for the future in our Annual Report. I would like to highlight a few numbers that help tell the story of our collaborative work in 2021:   We welcomed 21 new member organizations and now have 121 member organizations working across 10…Read More…

This piece was originally featured in NJ.com Opinions. By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist Adelisa Perez-Hudgins, MSN, RN, the Director of Quality for the New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute. Before I joined the Quality Institute, I worked as a telemetry nurse on a heart failure unit and later at an intermediate care unit. I closely monitored multiple…Read More…

Five years ago, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) predicted that by 2030 New Jersey would face the third largest nursing shortage in the nation. That was well before 18 percent of all American health care workers quit their jobs during the pandemic.   The crisis of health care worker shortages extends beyond nurses…Read More…

Last week I traveled to Washington, D.C., with Adelisa Perez-Hudgins, our Director of Quality, to attend the kickoff meeting of Leapfrog’s Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Advisory Committee, which I chair. This was our first in-person gathering, and it provided us with an opportunity to get to know each other, share our perspectives, and to reaffirm…Read More…

New Jersey has lifted the state’s public health emergency, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief. We’re re-opening our state just as the earliest signs of spring are beginning to emerge. It’s a time to share our gratitude to those who pushed themselves above and beyond to protect us — and those who…Read More…