DoD Military Health System Clinical Quality Management (MHS CQM) empowers MHS professionals to define and deliver the highest levels of quality healthcare and wellness services. It is part of an overall MHS strategy to be a world-class healthcare system providing care for beneficiaries worldwide. Our efforts include leadership in the areas of Clinical Quality Measures, Patient Safety, Quality Assurance and Quality Initiatives.
The purpose of the Clinical Quality Measures initiative is to provide guidance regarding performance improvement that results in the implementation of evidence-based intervention strategies to improve care. Clinical Quality Measures are reviewed and monitored through special clinical studies, Joint Commission facility reviews, Health Plan performance oversight, and Patient Satisfaction surveys. These external reviews of care help us to identify clinical best practices and areas for improvement.
Clinical Quality Management Team
This team of experienced healthcare and IT professionals provides expertise to the DoD in the areas of applied research, e-learning, knowledge transfer, marketing, Web application development, program management, and program support. The team also consults medical professionals at military treatment facilities (MTFs) on Joint Commission accreditation, quality management, performance improvement, and evidenced-based healthcare delivery. Additionally, the MHS CQM team is supported by Medisolv, an approved Joint Commission vendor for hospital accreditation efforts.
The vision of the DoD Patient Safety Program is to lead MHS to a culture of safety and quality. The Patient Safety Program includes incident reviews, root-cause analyses, failure-mode and affect analyses, patient safety indicator monitoring, and culture surveys. Up-to-date patient safety information is disseminated through our newsletter.
Quality Assurance
Quality assurance activities are concentrated at the MTF or healthcare facility treatment level. These activities include ensuring competency through credentialing, peer reviews, privileging reviews, medical staff audits, ongoing risk management, and fraud prevention.
Quality Initiatives
To assist MTFs in the transfer of knowledge into practice, MHS CQM also offers a variety of performance improvement information and support on the MHS CQM Web site. Numerous ongoing quality initiatives include accreditation, national quality programs, education and consultation, and TeamSTEPPS.