Guide Helps Health Care Organizations Assess Quality of Care

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Health and Human Services, in partnership with the American Health Lawyers Association (AHLA), released a resource guide September 13 on quality of care.

The guide is the third in a series of reports on corporate responsibility cosponsored by OIG and AHLA. The document is designed to help health care organization boards ask appropriate questions related to health care quality requirements, and includes tools to measure the quality of care and reporting requirements. Moreover, the guide is intended to assist health care organization directors in exercising their oversight responsibilities and in supporting their efforts to promote effective corporate compliance as it relates to health care quality.

The prior publications in this series addressed the oversight responsibilities of directors of health care governing boards on issues of compliance and health care law.

“These resources provide insight into the OIG's priorities and practical tools for directors to carry out their fiduciary responsibilities,” said Lewis Morris, an AHLA board member, counsel to the inspector general, and co-author of the document, in a prepared statement.

AHLA joined with the OIG in publishing this document “because of the AHLA's intense commitment to the public interest [and to] act as a public resource on selected health care legal issues,” Richard Shackelford, a member of the AHLA board and chair of its Public Interest Committee, said in a press statement. “I am confident that it will be an extremely valuable resource for health care boards of directors/trustees and the lawyers who advise them.”

“Corporate Responsibility and Health Care Quality: A Resource for Health Care Boards of Directors” is posted at<www.oig.hhs.gov/fraud/docs/complianceguidance/CorporateResponsibilityFinal%209-4-07.pdf>.▪