Using Workforce Practices to Drive Quality Improvement: A Guide for Hospitals

This guide communicates the idea that workforce and human resource practices can positively impact the quality of hospitals and health care institutions. Although research in this field is ongoing, this guide lists 14 high performance work practices that fall into four categories: organizational engagement, staff acquisition and development, frontline empowerment, and leadership alignment and development.

Each category is explained in detail and is supported by a story from the field that illustrates specific practices at work. An organizational assessment checklist and an extensive resources list are also included.

The guide is intended for hospital leaders and human resources personnel. AHA President and CEO, Rich Umbdenstock, remarked that this guide highlights the importance of a strong commitment by senior leaders when implementing high performance work practices and once again underscores the importance of creating an organizational culture that focuses on quality and safety.

It was developed in conjunction with AHRQ.

There is a slide presentation associated wtih this report.