JB Quality Solutions Inc.

Janet Brown, BA, BSN, RN, CPHQ, FNAHQ, has been active in the healthcare quality field since 1978 as an administrative director, consultant, and nationally known educator. She is President/CEO of JB Quality Solutions, Inc., and has been a business owner since 1984. She is passionate about the value of the quality professional in healthcare and the need to validate and promote that expertise and has spent the last 23 years developing and providing resources to that end.

She has worked with more than 50 healthcare organizations, including hospitals, ambulatory care centers and surgical centers, mental health facilities, review agencies, managed care organizations, and healthcare delivery systems in quality management/ improvement, utilization and case management, clinical risk management, information management, strategic planning, and systems development. She helped prepare for, and participated in, more than 35 accreditation and/or licensure surveys.

As an educator, Janet has presented more than 100 two-day workshops in 25 states for those preparing for the international examination to be a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ). She is author of The Healthcare Quality Handbook: A Professional Resource and Study Guide, annually revised since 1986. It is the text for Janet's Workshops, as well as for most other CPHQ study sessions offered throughout the U.S. and internationally. She is author/presenter of more than 35 additional articles/presentations in healthcare quality.

Janet is also co-author of Managing Managed Care [first edition] (1992) and Managing Managed Care II [second edition] (1996), by Goodman, Brown, and Deitz; and co-author of the Casebook for Managing Managed Care: A Self-Study Guide for Treatment Planning, Documentation, and Communication (2000), by Bjorck, Brown, and Goodman, for mental health professionals and providers, published by American Psychiatric Press, Inc.

As an elected volunteer leader, Janet served as President of the National Association for Healthcare Quality in 1995/96 and as a member of the Board of Directors twice, totaling five years. She was also the founding Chair, Board of Trustees, of the national Healthcare Quality Foundation, 1989-91, and served again as a trustee, 1996-1998. She received the Claire Glover Distinguished Member Award for NAHQ in 1991.

Janet has been a Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ) since 1984 and was inducted as a Fellow in the National Association for Healthcare Quality (FNAHQ) in 1998. She is a critical care registered nurse by background and holds two bachelors degrees.

Janet was a member of the Technical Advisory Committee for L.A. Care Health Plan, serving the Los Angeles County Medi-Cal Managed Care population of more than 800,000 members, from 1996 to 2004. She served as chair in 2003.

Sharing the Passion for Quality with You

In my ongoing dealings with my own IPA and now four different HMOs, I have learned first hand as a patient of our desperate need for a seamless continuum of care, care coordination and case management, and an effective quality strategy. Even so I still believe that such a quality healthcare delivery system is achievable!

If you are purchasing the Handbook or Workshop Audio, you are indeed committed to providing the knowledge, expertise, and service needed to facilitate the delivery of high quality care in your setting. I am very pleased to share this quality passion with you. This is a wonderful time for the healthcare quality professional. Both the organization and the public really are listening more intently. Take advantage of this search for quality. Become the expert. Then you truly can make a quality difference in your organization. Our patients certainly do deserve our very best efforts.

God bless you and best wishes in your study!

Janet Brown's Personal Story

My Healthcare Quality Beginning

In 1978 critical care nursing required multiple double shifts per week, few holidays off, with hopefully one weekend off every five worked, so I looked for a way to be more available for my two young children. I took a position in the new field of utilization management as the first "Quality Coordinator" for Area 18 Professional Standards Review Organization (PSRO), the precursor to the Professional Review Organizations (PROs), now the Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs).

After performing Medicare review in 28 hospitals, mental health, and rehab facilities in a 10-month period, I went to work for an acute hospital doing "delegated" Medicare review. The next month, the then Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals announced the new Quality Assurance Standards. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! The hospital provided me the wonderful opportunity to learn about healthcare quality from the ground floor. With the strong support of administration and the medical staff over a six-year period, I was empowered to develop and direct an integrated department that included quality, utilization, clinical risk management, patient representative, infection control, discharge planning, and social services. After three Joint Commission surveys (then every two years), with the last one "contingency free", I left the hospital in 1984 to begin consulting, and that year passed the first Certification Exam.

Interest in Certification

My passionate interest in promoting certification and professional growth grew out of a half-day study group and a 50-page set of handouts provided at the request of 12 colleagues preparing to take the second Certification Exam in 1985.

Over the last 23 years, the now 900-page, annually revised Healthcare Quality Handbook has become a key resource for those new to the field or studying for certification. And once quality professionals are familiar with the content, the Handbook serves as an ongoing resource. I have had the privilege of teaching more than 100 two-day intensive Healthcare Quality Overview and Certification Workshops, which are now also available in CD or MP3 audio format.

A Special Thank You

The Healthcare Quality Handbook is produced privately every year by a rather labor-intensive effort that, over this 22 years, has involved deeply those whom I love. Thank you to my family—my husband Warren and our now adult children, daughter Charise and her husband Josh, and son Ren and his wife Jenny—who have worked on producing the book and probably learned much more about quality management than they ever would have wished. Believe it or not, both Ren and Charise are now physicians. Special thanks to Jaime Hantla, my manager, who is responsible for production, and to Vince LuVisi, my printer. Thank you, too, to my healthcare quality colleagues who, year after year, offer their support and helpful input. It is the quality people in our lives who make us strive to do quality things.

Since 1995

The last few years have taken extra special caring by my family, colleagues, and friends. You see, on July 23, 1995, my life changed dramatically. I sustained a spinal cord injury and quadriplegia in a car accident. I must use a wheelchair; I have movement of my arms, but limited use of my hands. With the purposeful, intensive support of my husband and the National Association for Healthcare Quality Board of Directors and staff, I was able to begin and complete my year as NAHQ President.

Without my God, my family, and my friends, there is no way I could have continued producing the Handbook or the Workshops! These efforts are annual miracles. We have overcome computer viruses, two computer crashes, a major software problem, rolling energy blackouts, and significant personnel issues since the 1995 accident. In 1996 I was standing with a walker, walking brief stretches (with walker and assistance), and making slow, steady progress with strength and use of my hands. Since then I have experienced an as yet unexplained progressive loss of use of my legs with increased neurogenic pain. In 1997 I was diagnosed with breast cancer and in 2004 experienced local recurrences in 2004 and 2006; I remain a survivor. My hope and faith is in my Lord for strength, wisdom, and recovery.