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Maryland
Success
Stories: MARYLAND
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The Delmarva
Foundation, the QIO for Maryland and the District of Columbia, collaborated
with the Maryland Hospital Association to establish the Maryland
Patient Safety Center (MPSC) on July 1, 2004. The MPSC is a voluntary,
non-regulatory initiative that offers a broad array of initiatives,
including “near-miss” reporting, education and training,
research and collaboratives. In November 2004, the MPSC set out to
eliminate preventable blood stream infections, reduce ventilator-associated
pneumonia, and coordinate patient care. In the first 9 months, there
were 36 percent fewer catheter related blood stream infections. Overall,
the rate of ventilator-associated pneumonias dropped by nearly 20
percent. The Center received the 2005 John Eisenberg Patient Safety
and Quality Award from the Joint Commission and the National Quality
Forum for national/regional innovation in patient safety.
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HealthInsight’s past VP of Medical Affairs, Joseph Cramer,
MD, worked with a newly created technology committee at the Utah
Medical Association (UMA) in 2004 to craft seven resolutions promoting
HIT. The resolutions were ratified during the group’s annual
meeting in September 2004, and this effort, in conjunction with other
strategic partnerships, lead to nearly 50 percent of the primary
care clinics in the state enrolling in the Doctor’s Office
Quality – Information Technology (DOQ-IT) project.
- Western
Maryland Health System achieves Maryland’s highest discharge-instructions
rate for congestive heart failure: Working with the Maryland
QIO, Delmarva Foundation, the Western Maryland Health System (WMHS)
recently achieved the highest rate in the state on the Maryland hospital
report for providing Congestive Heart Failure discharge instructions.
CHF care managers at WMHS also improved performance on all CHF quality
measures. In 2002 through the first quarter of 2003, WMHS scored
100% on adult smoking advice and counseling and over 90% in Left
Ventricular Function Assessment. In addition to providing recommendations
for process development, Delmarva supplied reminder stickers, sample
CHF discharge instruction sheets, fact sheets on CHF drugs, and other
interventions tools.
- St.
Mary’s
NursingCenter in Leonardtown reduces facility-acquired pressure
ulcers in a test group by 69%: Working with the Delmarva Foundation,
the Maryland QIO, St. Mary’s tested whether effectively managing
pain could reduce the incidence of pressure ulcers. “If patients
are in pain, they are not going to get up. As they become increasingly
immobile, they get pressure ulcers,” says Monica Hayden,
Director of Nursing at St. Mary’s. “We wanted to see
if quickly addressing pain reduced pressure ulcers and it did.” Delmarva
provided staff training, assessment protocols, and guidelines for
revising policies. “Before working with Delmarva, we were
doing pain assessment on admission and every three days. There
was a lot of trial and error,” Hayden says. “Delmarva
had us look at ourselves. They really put our feet to the fire
to make this a priority. Reducing pressure ulcers was a direct
result of this project.”
- Personal
Touch Home Care in Baltimore reduces emergency hospital admissions
for patients with congestive heart failure: Personal Touch Home Care
worked with the Delmarva Foundation, the Maryland QIO, to improve
processes for monitoring patients’ weight gain and for using
data to focus interventions. During 2001, the agency cut the percentage
of heart failure patients needing emergency room care from 50% to
17%. The reduction of admissions represents better management of
care for congestive heart failure at home. “Delmarva got us
excited,” said Susan Niewenhous, National Quality Director
at Personal Touch. “We shared our initial data with our staff
and they didn’t like some of the outcomes. They said it was
an affront to their professionalism. They wanted to improve.” Niewenhous
can be reached at 410-241-8030.
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