When we talk about the quality of healthcare, what weÕre really talking about is delivering high value care that is timely, and evidence based and effective. 

I think when youÕre looking at quality and safety, itÕs important to have the ultimate outcome in mind and so those are the patient metrics, the things that we might report. But in order to get to that outcome, there are a number of process measures that need to be kept track of.

I think the quality and safety data that we report is really a reflection of the commitment that we have as an organization both to transparency and also to continuously striving to improve the care that we provide. WeÕre committed to fixing those problems real time and we meet every day to address them.

We actually are continuously evaluating our data in hopes that we can identify either processes that we could tighten up and make more standardized across the house to really deliver more consistent care. I also work very closely with my colleagues in neurosurgery and in interventional neuroradiology and in the emergency department so that we are standardizing our processes in all of these departments to take the best care of patients regardless of where they enter the health system from.

The people that are at the bedside are the ones that drive the improvements and come up with the solutions and I really think that that is an essential part of quality and safety at UVA.