1. Advancing Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety
PatientCareLink(PCL) assists participating healthcare organizations in monitoring and reporting progress on their efforts to continuously improve quality of care and patient safety.
PCL provides proven patient safety strategies and best practices to guide healthcare organizations to improve their processes and outcomes of care.
Our care providers share a broad range of patient care success stories that recognize best practices and demonstrate visible improvements in patient outcomes.
PCL affords healthcare organizations the ability to observe improvement trends over time on specific endeavors.
2. Providing Hospital Staffing that Meets Patient Needs
Massachusetts and Hospital Association of Rhode Island (HARI) member hospitals voluntarily make staffing plans available to patients and the public by posting them on the PatientCareLink(PCL) website. These annual plans explain staffing by shift in each hospital clinical unit; adult critical care, adult step-down, adult medical, adult surgical, adult medical/surgical combined, behavioral health, rehabilitation and emergency department.
The staffing plans also describe the factors that nurse leaders must consider in determining how to care for each patient, and offer information on care provided on an "hours per patient day" basis. Nurse leaders who are responsible for putting their facility’s staffing plan together gather information and advice from nurses and other members of the patient care team.
Hospitals submit annual aggregate staffing data, producing a planned versus actual staffing report. These reports provide the hospitals an opportunity to include explanations for variations between staffing plans and actual staffing that may occur.
3. Making Healthcare Data and Performance Measures Transparent and Publicly Available
PCL participating hospitals are committed to a common framework to assess and report healthcare quality. Hospitals have been publicly reporting nursing-sensitive, evidence-based measures selected from the National Quality Forum (NQF) since 2007.
The PCL initiative supports and encourages partnerships among healthcare organizations and leaders of business, government, consumer groups, and others to promote access to safe, high-quality care. Such efforts include expanding health insurance coverage, sustaining the capacity of the healthcare system to deliver care, and identifying ways to assist providers in deploying new technologies and innovations to advance patient safety.
4. Empowering Patients and Families in their Healthcare Choices
PCL places important healthcare information in the hands of consumers. It is a transparent resource for staffing, quality and safety data from hospitals, government agencies, and other independent sources.
PCL serves as a resource on a myriad of healthcare topics designed to encourage and assist individuals to participate in and make healthcare decisions that are right for them. Tools that can be found on the PCL website include advance care planning and healthcare proxies, information on preventing infections, hospital readmissions, and resources on Alzheimer’s and related dementias.
These tools and resources are updated regularly and can be aids to promote health throughout one’s lifespan.
5. Promoting Development/Advancement of the Healthcare Workforce in a Safe, Respectful & Supportive Work Environment
PCL affiliated organizations create hospital, and community-based initiatives and strategic partnerships to tackle the workforce shortages of nurses and other care professionals. Efforts include residency programs, mentoring and preceptor opportunities, academic-practice partnerships, and employer initiatives to increase the healthcare workforce pipeline, and diversity.
PCL supports the sharing and adopting of recognized programs, practices and innovations that support performance excellence in creating a healthy and safe workplace. Examples include the Caring for the Caregiver initiative focused on workforce safety and engagement, workforce development and deployment of staff. Recommendations from MHA’s Caring for the Caregiver Task Force Report are shared, as well as strategies and resources to support the healthcare workforce. MHA also continues to offer free webinars related to the Caring for the Caregiver pillars and posts them on the webinar series page. In addition, MHA has supported the enrollment of two cohorts of Massachusetts hospitals in the MHA-AACN (American Association of Critical Care Nurses) ) statewide Healthy Work Environment (HWE) Academy, which empowers nursing teams to lead sustainable improvements in workplace culture, nurse retention, and patient outcomes.
Our sponsors and participants support legislation and guidelines to promote workplace safety efforts and protect all patients, visitors, caregivers and hospital staff from workplace violence. Participating hospitals and caregiving teams monitor the progress of efforts to improve the work environment. Examples include MHA’s Guidelines for Healthcare Safety and Violence Prevention, originally published in 2019, updated in 2025.
