WIHI - A Podcast from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Date: ​​November 7, 2013 Featuring: Gordon Schiff, MD, Associate Director, Brigham Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice, Brigham and Women's Hospital Nicholas Leydon, MPH, Director, PROMISES Project, Massachusetts Department of Public Health Frank Federico, RPh, Executive Director, Strategic Partners, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Damian Folch, MD, Family Practice and Lifestyle Medicine (Chelmsford, MA) We don’t typically associate the ambulatory care setting with serious lapses in quality that threaten patient safety. Much of the improvement in recent years targeting outpatient care has focused on access, waiting times, communication, and coordination of care. But these areas ripe for change have often obscured others that, if not handled well, can have even more dire consequences: the ordering of tests, the timely handling and communication of results, and the overall process of making a diagnosis in response to a patient’s symptoms or complaints, including making referrals to