NEJM Catalyst

📣 May 2026 issue: organizational culture, leadership development, health system merger, value-based care and outsourcing, patient-reported outcome measures, fax triage, innovation exposure, Covid-19 testing, health system finances. 📖 View the TOC: nej.md/3PGPeRZ 🧵👇

NEJM Catalyst and the John A. Hartford Foundation invite manuscripts for an upcoming theme issue on implementation, scaling, and impact of the Age-Friendly Health Systems (AFHS) 4Ms Framework. Learn more and share your work: nej.md/4kNTpXw Deadline: June 1

A carefully planned and executed strategy for system integration can yield greater operational efficiency, meaningful improvements in patient care, and progressive cultural alignment: nej.md/47GFPzW

An optical recognition–enabled intervention to identify and reroute urgent referral faxes demonstrated high precision and supported redesigned system-level staffing and workflow associated with a 96.8% reduction in processing time for urgent referrals: nej.md/3Q4m537

Joon Lee, describes how Emory Healthcare confronted severe post–Covid-19 pandemic challenges — high turnover, dependence on contract labor, financial losses, and eroded trust — and used them as a catalyst for long-term transformation: nej.md/49acjmG

This case study describes the development, implementation, and impact of a multiyear cultural reinforcement initiative at a large academic medical center that aimed to improve workforce behavior, patient experience, and workplace culture: nej.md/4bQqy1R

The May 2026 issue of NEJM Catalyst Innovations in Care Delivery is now live: nej.md/3PGPeRZ

Our May issue covers organizational culture, leadership development, a health system merger, value-based care and outsourcing, patient-reported outcome measures, fax triage, innovation and venture exposure, Covid-19 testing, and health system finances: nej.md/4e25iHV

How health care leaders can refresh the high-reliability organization (HRO) concept to address today’s workforce shortages, AI integration, and complex care delivery demands - conversation with Tejal Gandhi: nej.md/4cDazn8

Vanderbilt University Medical Center developed an innovative approach to value-based care by partnering with local self-insured employers to deploy condition-oriented bundles designed via patient and physician input: nej.md/4tsjoXF

Integrating Human–AI Collaboration in ECG Analysis for Clinical Advancement nej.md/40Aiegn

A survey of the NEJM Catalyst Insights Council finds that leading health care organizations have pursued strategies to regain financial stability since the Covid-19 pandemic, including operational efficiency and a shift to outpatient and home-based care: nej.md/3OlBawG

This public–private partnership model can be employed for future public health emergency response, surveillance, research, and prevention: nej.md/4bZQkzC

The program enabled timely diagnosis for uninsured individuals and maintained a robust pharmacy network with the capacity to serve the entire U.S. population.

🧵 Rapid distribution of diagnostic testing and countermeasures in community settings is a persistent challenge during pandemics.

Listen to or read our Q&A with Tejal Gandhi, Chief Safety and Transformation Officer at Press Ganey, who reframes HRO as “high-reliability organizing,” an active verb describing consistent performance over time across clinical, operational, and financial domains.

High-Reliability Organizing: Refreshing a Proven Framework for Modern Health Care Challenges nej.md/4cDazn8

The authors also found that only surgeons who actively consulted the benchmarking dashboard modified their surgical indications. The differences were similar when compared with performance before benchmarking.

The authors analyzed data from over 2600 patients with complete PROM and CROM data and found that five times more surgeons modified the surgical indications they used during benchmarking than before benchmarking.

🧵 Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are increasingly applied in clinical practice to improve quality of care and patient outcomes. However, little is known about their use for peer comparisons of performance between clinicians, or benchmarking.