Quality & Safety

The Nursing and Patient Care Services Office of Quality & Safety has responsibility to work with PCS staff to understand and translate regulatory compliance issues, to implement state-of-the-art safety programs and to translate evidence into the creation of the highest quality and safest care environment for patients and staff. Our focus is to effect change, transform the culture and promote clinical excellence.

Six Aims for Quality Improvement

The Institute of Medicine’s aims for quality improvement are used as a framework for program design and evaluation.

The six aims are operationalized as follows:

1. Safety: no needless death, injury, pain or suffering for patients or staff.

• For our patients: harm no patient in our care
• For our staff: ensure the safest possible work environment
• For our hospital: seek out and maximize any opportunity to learn and improve; support and encourage every effort aimed at ensuring safety

2. Effectiveness: care and service will be based on best evidence, informed by patient values and preferences.

• For our patients: care and service at the MGH will always reflect the best evidence, always informed by patient values and preferences
• For our staff: equip staff with the education and resources needed to perform at their best and to learn continuously
• For our hospital: develop systems and a culture that makes it easy to do the right thing

3. Patient Centeredness: all care and service will honor the individual patients, their values, choices, culture, social context and specific needs.

• For our patients: partner with patients to incorporate and respect their needs and preferences in all we do
• For our staff: create an environment that fully supports all staff working in the patient’s best interest
• For our hospital: actively seek patient and staff participation throughout the design and implementation of programs that will affect them

4. Timeliness: waste no one’s time; no unnecessary waiting.

• For our patients: provide care without delay
• For our staff: treat staff time as one of our most valuable assets
• For our hospital: develop systems to facilitate and enhance timely interactions between patients and staff

5. Efficiency: remove all unnecessary processes or steps in a process; streamline all activities.

• For our patients: focus on getting it right the first time, valuing patients’ time, money and other resources
• For our staff: support our staff with systems that maximize their ability to do their best work
• For our hospital: remain open to all ideas to decrease waste and improve efficiency, while assuring the quality of patient care and staff life is not compromised

6. Equity: all care and service will be fair and equitable, and the system will treat all patients equally.

• For our patients: provide every patient with the same high level of quality and safety
• For our staff: ensure an environment in which all staff are treated with dignity and respect and provided opportunity to realize their goals
• For our hospital: develop programs, policies and practices that do not discriminate against patients, employees or clinicians

The PCS Office of Quality & Safety staff include:

• Colleen Snydeman, RN, PhD, Executive Director
• Catherine (Kate) Benacchio, DNP, RN, ACNS-BC, Clinical Nurse Specialist
• Karen Miguel, RN, MM-H, CCPS, Staff Specialist,/li> ,li>Sandra Thomas, MBA, Project Coordinator
• Virginia (Ginger) Capasso, PhD, CNP, CNS, CWS, FACCWS, FAAN, Clinical Nurse Specialist
• Melissa Lantry, RN, ACNS-BC, Project Manager PCS Informatics
• Michelle (Shelly) Stuler, MSN, RN-BC, Project Manager PCS Informatics
• Jane Thompson, RN MSHI, PCS Informatics