Mary Washington Hospice and Mary Washington Healthcare’s Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine were recently recognized for their respective quality improvement projects  -  “Changing a Culture to Achieve Excellence" and "Chemistry Redesigned:  Leaning Towards the Future.”  The awards were given by George Mason University’s Health and Human Services Department for Excellence in Clinical Improvement and Excellence in Service Improvement.

The New Jersey Hospital Association recently launched a consumer website for heart failure patients designed to help better manage their condition and protect them from return visits to the hospital. The user-friendly website offers a wealth of up-to-date information, advice, resources and links and allows patients to enroll in heart failure clinics so they can receive comprehensive follow-up care, search a list of pharmacies that deliver medications and find educational programs and exercise classes. And for health care providers, the site provides a valuable resource they can share with heart failure patients, with the goal of improving quality of care and reducing the high cost of hospital readmissions.

Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, LA, has been a leader in implementing new ideas and guidelines that help provide exceptional care and improve the health of women and infants.  In 2007, they launched a collaborative with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement to eliminate elective inductions prior to 39 weeks. Eliminating these deliveries improves outcomes for the newborn and mother and as clinical and policy support for the project grew, a larger movement evolved to reduce all early elective inductions and deliveries, unless medically necessary. To educate patients, the hospital provided physicians and patients with pamphlets describing the risks associated with elective inductions. From 2006–2011, primary cesarean delivery rates at Woman’s decreased 19% percent, and admissions to the neonatal intensive care unit decreased by 28.9% percent.

Through a creative, data-driven hand hygiene campaign Abington Memorial Hospital was able to increase its hand-washing compliance rate from 31% to over 90%. The campaign started with secret shoppers observing and collecting data in clinical units. Individual units created signs to remind staff, the administration offered an incentive bonus to all employees, reminders were displayed on computer screen savers and noncompliant staff received letters from the administration. In addition, with progress in hand hygiene, health care-acquired infections at the hospital have plummeted, with many departments reporting zero infections.

Rhode Island hospital ICUs continues to make significant strides in quality improvement and patient safety.  The Rhode Island ICU Collaborative recently released data that shows the rate of central line-associated blood stream infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia reached an all-time low last year. Intensive care units make use of the greatest advancements in medical science and represent areas with great opportunity to prevent death and reduce costs.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center was recently recognized by the Ohio Hospital Association for decreasing pediatric catheter associated blood stream infection rates on the Hematology/Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant units over three years by 65% and 68%, respectively.

The Ohio Patient Safety Institute (OPSI) recently announced Summa Akron City Hospital, Akron, and Riverside Methodist Hospital, Columbus, as the recipients of the fourth annual OPSI Best Practice Award, which honors a health care organization for implementing the most innovative, evidence-based patient safety practice in the state.

Wisconsin hospitals are sharing data that shows how well they are doing in preventing one of the most serious infections that can occur in an intensive care unit – central line-associated blood stream infections (CLABSI). The results show that 58 percent of the hospitals that reported data had zero CLABSI infections in their ICUs during the first six months of 2011.

Improving quality of care can go hand in hand with eliminating disparities in care. University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson participated in an initiative aimed to improve quality of cardiac care for African-American and Hispanic patients by improving care for all patients. UMMC adopted standardized protocols to collect race, ethnicity and language data; provided monthly reports on care performance measures, stratified by patient race, ethnicity and primary language, and tracked core measures of care for heart attack patients. In two years at UMMC, the number of patients receiving all core measures of care for heart attack increased from 74 percent to 82 percent. UMMC also set up an outpatient heart failure management clinic, led by a nurse practitioner who helps patients manage their disease after leaving the hospital. One year after opening the clinic, no patients had a readmission to the hospital.

When Kaiser Permanente in California measured its incidence of pressure ulcers in patients three years ago, it found that its rate of 2.8 percent was considered good, at least in comparison with other hospitals. But Kaiser decided it could do “significantly better” and set a goal to reduce pressure ulcers to less than 1 percent of the health care system's patients. As a result, from 2008 through 2011, Kaiser reduced the rate of pressure ulcers in patients to 0.6 percent.

Hospitals participating in the Tennessee regional collaborative of the American College of Surgeon's National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) achieved substantial improvements in surgical outcomes, such as reducing the rates of acute renal failure and surgical site infections.

For its efforts to reduce the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia, pressure ulcers and health care-acquired infections, South Texas Health System (STHS) has been honored with the Texas Hospital Association's  2011 Bill Aston Award for Quality. The award recognizes a hospital's measurable success in improving quality and patient outcomes through the sustained implementation of a national and/or state evidence-based patient care initiative.

In an effort to improve infant outcomes and particularly prematurity in Oklahoma, 55 Oklahoma hospitals participated in a harm reduction and quality improvement collaborative to eliminate unnecessary early deliveries prior to 39 weeks of gestation unless there is a documented medically necessary reason for the early delivery. This collaborative was appropriately called, “Every Week Counts .”

Every New Hampshire hospital has committed to achieving 100% compliance with appropriate hand hygiene practices in order to reduce the chance that patients and staff acquire a healthcare associated infection while receiving care. The 'High Five' campaign commits the hospital to investing in the 5 pillars of best practice of the program which include: Leadership Commitment, availability/convenience of products, hand hygiene training and competency, measurement, and accountability.

The Ohio Hospital Association (OHA) have partnered with the Ohio Patient Safety Institute (OPSI) to work with member hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies throughout the state to improve patient care in 11 clinical areas, ranging from preventing infections and falls to helping patients fight disease from multidrug-resistant organisms.

Nassau University Medical Center has received the Get With The Guidelines®-Heart Failure Bronze Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association. Get With The Guidelines is a quality improvement initiative that provides hospital staff with tools that follow proven evidence-based guidelines and procedures in caring for heart failure patients to prevent future hospitalizations. The recognition signifies that NUMC has reached an aggressive goal of treating heart failure patients for at least 90 days with 85 percent compliance to core standard levels of care outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology secondary prevention guidelines for heart failure patients.

Integrating the electronic health record to improve the overall care and health of the communities it serves is an overarching goal at West Virginia University Healthcare. The hospital created its Center for Quality Outcomes to integrate functions related to quality, safety and performance improvement. The center conducts research and develops strategies to ensure organizational readiness for new challenges and requirements such as meaningful use.

Earlier this month, 20 Central Ohio hospitals staged simultaneous Scrub Up! events to highlight the critical importance of hand hygiene to reduce infections and disease transmission. The Ohio Hospital Association's (OHA) Quality Institute spearheaded the observance, which engaged staff and visitors of every hospital in six counties.

The Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems has launched a patient-centered initiative to highlight Oregon hospitals' quality programs. The Hospitals4Health initiative will showcase community partnerships and other efforts, and encourage patients to be active participants in their care.

The first Kentucky Infection Prevention Boot Camp was held October 11-14 in Louisville and was attended by more than 230 health care professionals from all types of health care settings including, long-term care facilities, ambulatory surgery centers, public health settings and hospitals (97 of the state's 130 hospitals participated).  Attendees shared the common goal to reduce the risk of health care related infections.

Hospitals across Rhode Island were among the first in the nation to have unanimous voluntary adoption of a surgical protocol. The protocol establishes uniformity across hospitals so health care practitioners working at multiple organizations will follow the same routine for all surgical procedures.

To date, the collaborative efforts of the Michigan Hospital Association and Michigan hospitals have saved more than 2,000 lives and more than $300 million.

Alabama's hospitals have decreased the rate of central-line associated blood stream infections in participating intensive care units by 38%. Through this focused approach, hospitals have saved approximately $1.5 million and decreased the number of hospital days by 397.

The Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania  (HAP) partnered last week to launch a health care worker universal influenza vaccination campaign. The campaign provides tools to support all hospitals in Pennsylvania in implementing an evidence-based universal vaccination initiative, working toward flu vaccination among health care workers becoming a condition of employment by 2013, as part of a comprehensive approach to prevent all health care-associated infections.

The voluntary patient safety and quality efforts led by Michigan hospitals continue to prevent infections, save lives, introduce efficiencies, save millions of health care dollars and empower consumers. The Michigan Health & Hospital Association released the 2011 Patient Safety and Quality Report: Hospitals Putting Patients First that highlights the safety, quality and efficiency efforts under way in Michigan hospitals and health systems.

The California Hospital Association launched a statewide patient safety awareness campaign called “ Caring is Our Calling,”  which features a statewide television ad, a web-based video, patient safety issue briefs, and digital and social media activities. The goal of the campaign is to showcase the efforts of California hospitals in providing access to safe, high quality care for all patients.

At Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, a team representing key departments makes patient safety rounds to proactively address safety risks then makes recommendations for changes. If a potentially unsafe event occurs, Jefferson responds immediately using the Patient Safety Net (PSN), a Web-based reporting system offering real-time problem solving. The Jefferson Health System is the first Pennsylvania health system using the PSN.

The Texas Hospital Association recently launched the Texas Center for Quality and Patient Safety, within its nonprofit foundation, to advance the adoption of proven strategies that enhance the quality and safety of care provided in Texas hospitals.

Study shows that Massachusetts hospitals to have enhanced quality of care and while reducing costs by more than $151 million for acute and specialty care hospitals statewide between 2007 and 2009 due to a commitment to performance improvement measures. The improvements were credited to increased intra-hospital collaboration and a sense of responsibility to voluntary public reporting of nursing-sensitive care measures.

Florida's hospitals are recognized for their effectiveness and continued focus on eliminating central line-associated blood stream infections (CLABSI). Over the past two years, 21 Florida hospitals have participated in this effort to eliminate CLABSI in intensive care units and have done so with a focus on improving care through enhanced teamwork and a culture of patient safety.

Simi Valley Hospital in Simi Valley, Calif. is involved in an effort to reduce pressure ulcers, in conjunction with parent company Adventist Health. The goal of the campaign is to facilitate an interdisciplinary approach to avoiding pressure ulcers, efficiently managing care when they occur and identifying and implementing best practices to reduce the incidence of pressure ulcers. The rate of pressure ulcers at Simi Valley Hospital dropped throughout 2010, thanks in large part to education efforts with the hospital's staff, as well as patients and their family members and other caretakers.

Pennsylvania was the first state to create a patient safety organization, the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority. Hospitals report serious events and near?miss information to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, which reports, analyzes, and makes recommendations on how to improve care and prevent medical errors.

Transplant recipients are fragile patients, at high risk for infections and require complex follow-up care. In 2009, the transplant team at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center created a standard discharge process to prevent errors and unplanned preventable occurrences and to improve communication and care delivery between caregivers and the medical team.

Responding to an explosive growth in patient population, Yale-New Haven Hospital implemented a successful initiative to achieve safer patient flow. Method changes for patient services included standardizing the discharge process, using status boards for visual control and improving the accuracy and timeliness of data entry. Results include a 32% percent improvement in discharges by 11 a.m. and an 11% decrease in average bed cleaning turnover time.

Saint Joseph-London in London, KY has improved care and reduced readmissions for chronically ill patients, focusing first on heart failure patients. To better prepare patients for discharge, the hospital implemented a transition coach program. With this intervention, the readmissions rate for heart failure patients has decreased to 15.9% from 27.7%.

Minnesota Hospitals continue to aggressively combat wrong-procedure events throughout their organizations and are doing so through a Time Out Campaign designed to eliminate wrong-site events through administration, physicians and front-line staff joining together to hold each other accountable for conducting robust, effective time-outs for every patient, every invasive procedure, every time.

The Ohio Hospital Association is honoring 28 hospitals with its Hospital Safety Awards for successful hospital safety programs and superior employee safety records.

The Texas Center for Quality and Patient Safety is an affiliate of the Texas Hospital Association’s nonprofit foundation. Established in 2010, the center is bringing together Texas hospitals, state and national experts and evidence-based health care practices in an effort to improve the quality of care at the bedside and reduce costs.

Eighty-one percent of Oregon hospitals now use a safe surgery checklist to reduce surgical complications.

Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York instituted a new program called "Patient Safety Fridays." - the leadership team meets every Friday to examine safety and regulatory issues and make improvements.

The University of Michigan Health System created "Improving Patient Safety in Hospitals: Turning Ideas into Action"  to promote best practices that exemplify safe and high quality patient care. 

Minnesota Hospital Association is conducting "SAFE SITE," a statewide campaign to prevent wrong-site surgeries.

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