The tools your quality and safety teams use every day — the surveys, the training programs, the implementation frameworks — were built on decades of federal investment. Most leaders know the names: CAHPS, TeamSTEPPS, CUSP, SOPS. Fewer realize they all trace back to the same agency, and that agency is under sustained pressure.
AHRQ survived this year's budget fight. That's worth acknowledging. But survival is not the same as stability — and the FY2027 proposal makes clear this is not over. For quality leaders, the practical question isn't about federal politics. It's whether your organization has mapped its own exposure before you're forced to.
That's the lens for this month's first IN FOCUS segment: not the budget drama, but the specific programs at risk and what their erosion means for your day-to-day work. The second dive goes somewhere equally important — what 56 hospitals across six countries just proved about the connection between nursing culture, burnout, and patient harm. Together, they point to the same conclusion: the organizations that will hold ground on safety are the ones that have built it into how they operate, not what they subscribe to.
And, if you read to the end, you'll find some fun news from our farm in Chattahoochee Hills, GA. Teaser - It involves puppy antics...
— Jennifer