Becker's Hospital Review

19 CMO / CARE DELIVERY The ROI on quality: 7 stats to know By Mackenzie Bean H ealth systems can achieve significant returns on investment by prioritizing quality and patient safety, according to a June 2 report from the National Association for Healthcare Quality. e report is among the first to quantify financial return on investing in quality and safety, refuting the assertion that these priorities must come at the expense of cutting costs, NAHQ said. e report includes real-world results from five of 14 health systems participating in NAHQ's Workforce Accelerator initiative, including: • Kaiser Permanente (Oakland, Calif.) • Christus Health (Irving, Texas) • Veterans Health Administration (Washington, D.C.) • Brown University Health (Providence, R.I.) • Columbus (Ind.) Regional Health rough the initiative, systems deploy NAHQ's Healthcare Quality Competency Framework to assess quality structures, upskill teams and reduce variability across its workforce. Below are seven figures to know from the report, based on initial results from Christus Health, Kaiser Permanente and Brown University Health (formerly Lifespan). 1. Christus Health Since adopting the quality framework three years ago, Christus Health has: • Avoided $3 million in costs related to harm metrics • Gained more than $15 million annually from pay-for- performance incentive programs • Reported a return more than 20 times its annual investment 2. Kaiser Permanente Northern California Now in its third year of program implementation, with more than 170 staff members standardizing quality work across the market, Kaiser has achieved: • A 194% improvement in cost avoidance from quality work over the past two years • More than $6.5 million in savings from quality improvements • A 92% reduction in Hospital-Acquired Condition Reduction Program penalties 3. Brown University Health e health system has rolled out standardized safety and quality training to more than 10,000 team members as part of the Workforce Accelerator. Since 2022, it has reduced HAC penalties by $3.2 million. "NAHQ Workforce Accelerator results prove the program can level up performance of quality and safety teams, and elevating that performance significantly reduces harm and serious safety events, improves culture and save[s] millions of dollars," James Merlino, MD, executive vice president and chief innovation officer at e Joint Commission, said in the report. "is is gold." n Hospitals prioritize safety, staffing over readmissions in nursing strategy By Paige Twenter L owering readmission rates ranks lowest among 20 executive-level priorities in nursing care, according to a report from NSI Nursing Solutions, a healthcare recruitment agency. NSI surveyed 1,676 hospital and healthcare CEOs, COOs, nursing executives and human resource leaders across the U.S. for its annual Hospital Executive Level Priorities (HELP) survey. The HELP Nursing survey scored each priority 20 on a scale from 1 to 100. While quality of care and patient safety remained the top concern, its score dropped 5.4 percentage points year over year — from 97.1 in 2024 to 91.7 in 2025. Between 2024 and 2025, the priority given to talent retention and turnover fell by 12 percentage points. Efforts to reduce premium labor expenses dropped even further, with a 13 percentage-point decline. The most notable gain was seen in concerns around bed capacity and emergency department overcrowding, which increased from 62.1 to 70. Here are the 20 nursing care priorities ranked by executives: Quality of care and patient safety — 91.7 Patient satisfaction and experience — 79.4 Retaining talent or employee turnover — 73.5 Registered nurse/professional recruitment — 72.2 Maintaining competitive salary, wages and benefits — 71.4 Workplace violence — 71 Bed capacity and ER overcrowding — 70 Maximizing support roles to reduce RN workload — 66.2 Shift coverage — 64.1 Financial reimbursements — 60.1 Reducing premium labor expenses, e.g. overtime, contract/travel, shift bonus — 59.5 Burnout — 58.8 Cost containment — 58.8 Leadership development — 58.6 Capital equipment/technology acquisition and implementation — 56.8 Professional development — 56.5 Regulatory mandates — 54.6 Redesigning care process — 54.1 Succession planning — 51 Lowering readmission rates — 47.8 n

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