PRINCETON, N.J., July 23 /EMWNews/ -- The New Jersey

Hospital Association's Institute for Quality and Patient Safety has

received a planning grant for $199,502 from the Robert Wood Johnson

Foundation (RWJF) to develop a proposal for improving the quality of

healthcare in New Jersey.



    The grant will help determine over the next six months whether New

Jersey can be represented in RWJF's Aligning Forces for Quality initiative,

which is focused on lifting the overall quality of healthcare in targeted

communities, reducing racial and ethnic disparities, and providing models

of national healthcare reform for other parts of the country. The

Foundation launched the Aligning Forces initiative last month. Materials

about the Aligning Forces initiative can be found at http://www.rwjf.org.



    NJHA's Institute for Quality and Patient Safety will be the leadership

organization for this project. NJHA's Aline Homes, senior vice president of

clinical affairs, will serve as project director, and Peter A. Gross, MD,

senior vice president and chief medical officer for Hackensack University

Medical Center, will act as project co-director.



    "This is an excellent opportunity for us to participate in a project

that could have an enormous positive effect on the quality of healthcare

delivered to patients. There will be a number of key players involved in

this initiative including the Department of Health and Senior Services, the

Department of Banking and Insurance, The Rutgers Center for State Health

Policy, The Medical Society of New Jersey and The New Jersey State Nurses

Association," stated Holmes.



    This group will meet on a regular basis for the next six months to

develop a statewide plan for quality improvement that will be submitted to

RWJF in December.



    Based in Princeton, NJHA has been providing its 108 members with

advocacy, information, research and education since 1918.