29 Utah hospitals join a campaign for patient-safety

Twenty-nine Utah hospitals have signed onto a "5 Million Lives" patient-safety campaign to prevent unintentional harm to patients.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement estimates that close to 15 million incidents of "medical harm" occur in hospitals nationwide every year, and the group is determined to reduce that number by a third in the coming two years. Major national organizations, including the American Hospital Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and The Joint Commission have endorsed the program.

Shriners Hospital for Children Intermountain plans to focus its attention on three components of the campaign, since not all of the areas apply to the specialty orthopedic hospital. Spokesman Michael Babcock said they have been working to prevent surgical-site infections, adverse drug effects and pneumonia as a complication of being on a ventilator.

They've already seen improvements over the past year in the first two areas and they didn't have a single case of ventilator-related pneumonia, but he noted that very few of their patients are on ventilators to begin with. They're also working with other hospitals within the Shriner system and an organization called Pediatric Affinity Group to see if there are other areas they should add to improve patient safety.

"Patient safety is really the key support of what we do in the hospital and in health care," said Mo Mulligan, University Hospital director of performance improvement. "You cannot provide exceptional care to patients without safety being just an underlying support of everything you do."

Because health care is not "100 percent predictable," results can't be guaranteed, but hospitals must do everything they can to make it as safe as possible and to decrease complications as much as possible, she said. They are focusing on reducing the ventilator-related pneumonias, preventing central line infection and medication reconciliation, including teaching patients that they need to know what medicines they're taking and how much, so interactions can be avoided.

The campaign has identified a dozen specific improvements, including prevention of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus infection, using evidence-based care for heart attacks and deploying rapid-response teams at first sign of patient decline.

Hospitals can choose the areas they want to emphasize, said Linda Johnson, project coordinator for HealthInsight, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Utah and Nevada. Besides hospitals, she said, they're enlisting nursing home and hospital cooperation, especially in areas like pressure ulcers.