Summary: Already on a quest to accelerate clinical excellence, Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Ill. was the first hospital to sign on with the CMS/Premier Hospital Quality Improvement Demonstration in 2003. Jim Bente, Memorial's vice president of quality and organizational development, said the initiative was a natural extension of Memorial's focus on safety, quality and clinical excellence. A top performer in the demonstration project, Memorial initiates employees in its culture of quality from the day they're hired, explains Bente. To emphasize this commitment, department and individual goals in this initiative are prominently displayed throughout the hospital. Bente, Regina Berman, administrative director for performance improvement, and Liz Popwell, Cleveland County Healthcare Systems' vice president of systems management, gave us the inside details on how these hospitals have structured their internal processes to support an environment of performance improvement that has led to quality incentive payments from CMS under the Hospital Quality Improvement program during an April 18, 2007 audio conference, How to Structure a Healthcare Performance Improvement Process That Results in Incentive Payments.
