Hello, my UCR Health colleagues.

Summer is a time to do things safely. Like wearing sunscreen at the beach or by the pool, being extra careful when cycling, or when taking the kids to theme parks. But our patient and environmental safety efforts require us to use our best clinical and administrative processes 365 days per year to ensure we keep our patients safe and that we provide a safe environment for our employees. So, I thought summer was a perfect time to profile UCR Health’s plan to address our safety culture.

As you all know, safety is as important as quality health care. In fact, the two measures can be seen walking hand in hand through our hallways and clinics. Safety and quality are also why we will begin participating in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) safety survey. On July 31, Helen Lau, our Director of Quality, Patient Safety, Risk, and Population Health, held a Zoom session to discuss the AHRQ survey. If you were unable to attend, the key information is below.

The AHRQ mission is to make health care safer, of higher quality, and more accessible, equitable, and affordable to communities nationwide. Safety and quality assessments, especially when it comes to our core community services of diabetes, hypertension, and cancer screenings, are what can set us apart from other organizations. And quality remains one of our key objective categories regarding our ability to grow our services. But quality isn’t all that matters. Patient safety is the other key metric. When both are identified and charted, we can then achieve even greater success. This survey truly represents an opportunity for us. It was approved by the UCR Patient Safety Committee in June and will help UCR Health to assess our patient safety culture. 

How can you help? Beginning August 1 through August 14, UCR Health clinic attending physicians, residents, allied health personnel, clinic staff, clinic managers, and clinic leaders will receive a survey link unique for each clinic location.

Please click one link from below based on your location and submit your honest answers and evaluations. It only takes about 10 minutes.

• Citrus Tower Multispecialty Center
• Silver Oaks - Women's Health
• La Quinta - Pediatrics

Did I mention that the survey is anonymous? The survey is completely confidential. The goal is to use the feedback to chart our patient safety strategies and remove barriers hindering a strong patient safety culture, so be as honest and straightforward as possible.

Once the Quality and Patient Safety office receives the feedback report from AHRQ, we will be able to identify where gaps might exist, which areas should be flagged for improvement, and what opportunities exist for us to create solutions together. These results will allow us to see how we perform as a healthcare system compared to the entire country. Just imagine all we can accomplish for our patients with that knowledge.

Equally important, the results will also allow us to celebrate UCR Health’s accomplishments and share the feeling of doing something great together. I commit to sharing the high-level results and trends with you after we receive the results and have developed a plan.

This survey is a quick turnaround, but with your participation, UCR Health will be able to improve our commitment to our community and serve everyone who comes through our doors even better than before.

In the coming months, we will continue to publish objectives and profile the work that is going on in each of our strategic areas of focus. These changes won’t happen overnight, but I believe they will happen. In fact, it’s because of your incredible work – the efforts you make every single day – that we are already making an impact in addressing access issues that exist in the region.

My thanks to each one of you. I’m proud to be part of this incredible team and know that when we work together, there is no stopping what we can accomplish.