Ensuring appropriate care through collaboration and proven practices in the critical care setting is a high priority for physicians, nurses, hospitals, and quality leadership. In New York State, the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA) and the United Hospital Fund (UHF) have been at the forefront in establishing noteworthy initiatives and forums to address these important issues. Under the next phase of this series of initiatives, the GNYHA Foundation is pleased to submit this application to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) requesting support for a conference, Critical Care Networks: A Model to Improve Patient Outcomes Through the Creation of Educational Partnerships between Rural, Community, and Academic Centers. ? ? The conference will serve as a means to broadly disseminate information on the GNYHA/UHF Critical Care Leadership Network (CCLN) model for improvement in critical care. Specifically, the conference aims 1) review the structure and priorities of the CCLN as a replicable model for improvement, 2) review and report on its validated survey tools, methodology and results, and 3) discuss specific strategies and best practices that will better the delivery of critical care services in the region. The overall theme of the conference is to share innovative methods for collaborating and improving critical care services in an effort to improve overall patient outcomes. By creating a structure and forum for critical care professionals to interact with each other on a regular basis, along with clearly defined priority areas, which are based on frequent and valid methods of measurement, health care communities can significantly improve their ICU processes and patient care. In addition, the conference organizers will share the ICU survey tool, methodology and lessons learned from conducting such a survey on a large scale, and include presentations on key findings that come from an analysis of the survey data. ? ? ?
