During the first week of March 2020, our Conversation of Your Life (COYL) county task forces were preparing community events leading up to National Healthcare Decisions Day, organized to inspire community members and health care professionals to learn more about advance care planning. But then word of people dying across the globe from a novel…Read More…

Five years ago, the Quality Institute, in partnership with many of our members, increased our focus on Maternal Infant Health. We were driven by our concern over New Jersey’s high rate of Caesarean section deliveries, high rate of maternal morbidity and mortality, and the disparities based on race. Since then, much has changed, and I…Read More…

Oral health is a window into overall health. Poor oral health is associated with higher rates of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and pulmonary infections. Oral health also is linked to pregnancy complications such as low-birth weight and premature birth. Moreover, studies have shown that regular dental treatments for those with chronic conditions such as diabetes lowers…Read More…

A new research report conducted by the Urban Institute and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has found that Black adult patients experience significantly higher rates of hospital acquired infections and injuries than white adult patients of the same age group, gender, with similar insurance coverage  — within the same hospital. The report is an…Read More…

Budgets, like tax codes, are not just fiscal documents with numbers. A budget reflects who has power, whose voice is heard, what needs are met. After the traumatic year we’ve been through, it’s good to see that we have money to spend to begin healing our State. When it comes to health care spending, it…Read More…

We released our Emerging from COVID-19 Action Plan for a Healthier State in early May. Since then, many of you have reached out to discuss next steps. The Action Plan forms the strategic focus of our work at the Quality Institute, and we will continue sharing our efforts to further these far-reaching consensus recommendations. In…Read More…

The settings where people undergo surgeries and other medical procedures have experienced a profound shift. Now it’s time for safety and quality reporting to catch up.   More than 60 percent of surgeries in the United States today are performed in hospital outpatient centers or Ambulatory Surgery Centers (ASCs). The movement of these medical procedures…Read More…

One incredible lesson from the pandemic is how quickly a mode of care, such as telehealth, can be adopted and widely used by so many people in innovative ways. That said, as we heard from each of the speakers at our virtual All-Council Conference yesterday, sustaining and delivering high quality equitable telehealth will take more…Read More…

  Free, compulsory education became the law of the land in the early 19th century, and today few would question its value. Access for all children to public schools is now an ingrained, essential common good and public right supported by government and taxpayers at all levels.   Today, a group of researchers, physicians, and…Read More…

Telehealth has emerged as an essential strategy to provide patients with many types of care, including remote monitoring for home-based care and remote participation in clinical trials. The exponential rise in telehealth is challenging to even calculate. According to the Fair Health Tracker, billing for telehealth services for a year during the pandemic increased more…Read More…