SHN has two types of measures for each of the interventions; one is process measures and the other is outcome measures.  An example of a process measure is percentage compliance with implementing the VAP bundle. Central line-associated primary bloodstream infection rate is an example of an outcome measure.  Measurement is essential to monitoring quality improvement success and it helps guide teams toward their specific intervention goal (e.g. 90 per cent of ventilated patients have the VAP bundle implemented).

The goal for the project is that all participating organizations will track and report their intervention data (e.g. per cent of acute MI patients receiving aspirin on discharge, or percentage of patients who receive the VAP bundle) to the SHN Central Measurement Team (CMT). The sharing of intervention results will be voluntary and aggregated results will be reported publicly. High performing organizations will be asked if they would like to be identified and profiled publicly. A specific consent for this public recognition will be obtained.

Once organizations enroll in SHN or in a new intervention it is expected that they will:

• support their team(s)
• use the GSK and other SHN tools to guide their improvement work
• join the community of practice (CoP)
• keep the enrollee data base updated with their organization's information
• participate in national calls
• contact their node
• post questions, tools and resources on the CoP
• measure their success and submit data
• share their success with other teams and organizations

For further information on SHN measurement refer to the SHN Instructions for Data Entry and Submission Using Measurement Worksheets.

Visit the Safer Healthcare Now! Partners page to see current Partners and the Safer Healthcare Now! Participants page to see current Participants.