by Delbert Chumley, MD
BCMS President 2007
The acronym PFQPS is quite an alphabetical mouthful, and more than likely you have no idea what it means. Neither did I, until I became involved in this organization. Since then I have come to realize how important it is to the physician community and the citizens of our city.
The Physician Forum on Quality and Patient Safety is part of the Greater San Antonio Hospital Council (GSAHC). In response to the 2005 CMS Hospital Compare Program, Mr. Bill Rasco, the Hospital Council's president and CEO, established a committee composed of health care organizations from the counties represented by the south Texas region. Naturally, most of the participants were from Bexar County.
This committee's charge was to address how our region's hospitals could work together in a coordinative manner to address common quality-related topics. It now has expanded to address the Joint Commission's directives on common medical
staff issues.
During the early days of this organization, physician input was achieved through the Physician Executive Forum, consisting of senior physician representation from each major hospital or health care facility.
As this organization matured and grew, the composition and structure was changed to include not only executive-level physicians but also the GSAHC region's CEO's and quality and patient safety representatives from health care organizations. The name was changed in 2006 to the present acronym, PFQPS.
The members presently meet monthly to discuss issues common across the district and evaluate processes which could improve health care delivery and patient safety.
Recommendations are disseminated to all member facilities and are subsequently implemented in a similar fashion so that there is standardization across the district. To physicians this means that what is implemented at one hospital will be same as in another.
Here are but a few of the many issues this organization has addressed: physician ID badges (through a multi coordinated effort), medication color coding system, hospital transfer directives, transfusion criteria, Medicare
48 hour discharge notice, medication home list, hospital acquired MRSA and preprinted admission and discharge orders.
They presently are working on a solution about physician handwriting legibility in the medical record which would help decrease medical mistakes and yet not be onerous
to physicians.
Obviously, the decisions made by the Physician Forum on Quality and Patient Safety directly affect our practices every day. They play a very important and vital role in improving the delivery of hospital care and ensuring patient safety.
Your BCMS president, president-elect, past-president and executive director are members of this organization, and as one of the members I truly appreciate the mission and purpose of this group of hardworking, devoted professionals. Just the fact that someone is out there watching our backs trying to make our job safer and less confusing is enough in itself for us to support them.
As a physician, I see another very important benefit of the PFQPS... it's a source where doctors can bring concerns about hospital policies, or procedures, or suggestions about ways to improve patient care and safety.
Next time you're making rounds, seeing a patient in the ED or operating in the OR and identify a problem regarding patient safety or a method to improve a clinical outcome, think about the PFQPS. Pass on your concerns or ideas to the BCMS. We know where to take them to institute a change that could possibly benefit our entire community.
