|
Utah
Success
Stories: UTAH
|
- After its initial electronic health information (EHR) implementation failed, the Riverton Family Health Center (RFHC), an independent, physician-owned practice, joined the Doctor’s Office Quality – Information Technology (DOQ-IT) project sponsored by the state’s QIO, HealthInsight. The QIO helped provide structure and support while RFHC determined practice-wide EMR needs, fixed current workflow problems, and looked at different EMR vendors. Having been through the EMR gauntlet twice, the practice recognizes the value of QIO support and cautions other practices not to make decisions without careful planning, including staff input from all practice areas, and lots of background work.
- Hillside Rehabilitation Center in Salt Lake City , Utah , is working with the state QIO, HealthInsight, to give their residents more freedom and choices in their daily lives by implementing culture change. The Choices Program allows residents rise and eat when they wish, providing access to five meals a day. Other changes at Hillside include an improved admission process that helps staff learn about new residents to meet their individual needs. By using culture change strategies, Hillside is enhancing the daily lives of the residents -- creating a home for each individual while enriching the experience of staff and family members.
- Jordan Valley Hospital in Salt Lake City , Utah worked with HealthInsight, the state’s QIO, to use Medicare quality data to evaluate areas where it could improve and use quality tools and techniques to make significant changes in pneumococcal and influenza vaccination rates. The pneumococcal vaccination rate improved to 100% by the end of 2005 from a baseline of 28.6% in the second quarter of 2004. Influenza vaccination rates started at 85.7% in the fourth quarter of 2004, increasing to 97% in the fourth quarter of 2005.
- St. Mark’s Hospital in Salt Lake City , Utah participated in the national Surgical Infection Prevention Collaborative with support from their QIO, HealthInsight. The team chose five focus areas: p rophylactic antibiotics, perioperative normothermia, hair clipper vs. razor for shaving, glucose control, and supplemental oxygenation. As a result of their interventions and collaboration with physicians and various departments, surgical site infections decreased by 1.5 %.
- McKay Dee Hospital Center in Ogden , Utah worked with HealthInsight to use electronic medical records (EMR) to prompt assessment of the need for smoking cessation counseling to all patients. (The EMR required documentation of assessment before a nurse could move to another field in the patient’s chart.) In the third quarter of 2004, the hospital achieved 17% compliance in smoking cessation for pneumonia patients and below 80% for acute myocardial infraction and heart failure patients. In the first quarter of 2006, McKay Dee has achieved 100%.
- Superior Home Care in Murray, Utah has worked with HealthInsight, the Utah QIO, since 2003 to improve care for its clients with urinary incontinence. From April 2003 to April 2004, the number of clients who improved in urinary incontinence increased from 29% to 47%. Since that time, Superior Home Care continued to get better – increasing the percentage of clients improving on this measure to 77% -- 28% above the national average and 25% above state averages for this quality measure.
- Gunnison Valley Home Health in Gunnison , Utah , partnered with HealthInsight to focus on reducing the number of patients who have to be admitted to the hospital. The agency identified and tracked at-risk patients, incorporated specific interventions into patient care plans to address each risk factor, and addressed communications issues with physicians. Since the start of the initiative, Gunnison Valley Home Health has reduced the percentage of patients needing to be hospitalized by 7%. “Working with HealthInsight keeps us focused as well as helping us apply the full process for quality improvement,” said Barbara Lund, Director of Gunnison Valley Home Health.
- Between 2002 and 2005, HealthInsight, the QIO for Nevada coordinated a statewide effort to improve the quality of care for people with diabetes by introducing participants to the Chronic Care Model (CCM). More than 12 organizations including physicians, managed care organizations, hospitals, home health agencies, and nursing homes participated. Physicians that worked closely with HealthInsight improved the percentage of diabetic patients that receive a lipid panel blood test by 9% and an HbA1c test by 4%.
- With the help of his QIO, HealthInsight, Robert Gong, MD, at Siena Hills Primary Care in Henderson , Nevada implemented an electronic health record (EHR) system in the fall of 2004 to manage patient care and improve efficiency. “We have seen dramatic improvement in our documentation since the system was implemented,” said Dr. Gong. “The system has increased efficiency in our workflow, allowing multiple users access to the record at the same time, and also improved patient safety by reducing the chances of prescription errors related to illegible handwriting.”
- Utah-based
Christus St. Joseph Villa, a nursing home, spent much of last year
working in collaboration with HealthInsight , the state’s
QIO, to reduce the number of resident falls at the facility from
an average 56 falls per month to 37 falls per month.
- HealthInsight, the Utah QIO, started working in January 2005
with the Ogden Women’s Clinic in Ogden, Utah to help improve
patient care by optimizing use of electronic health records (EHRs).
The clinic went from a system in which only a couple of the providers
used the EHR—with minimal functions—to more widespread
use of the system, with providers using standardized forms that help
reduce the need for paper charts and allow patients to be seen with
ease by any provider.
- Working with HealthInsight in
2004 and 2005, University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics (UUHC) in Salt
Lake set a goal of increasing vaccinations for persons admitted with
pneumonia. After restructuring its vaccination process—which
included more involvement from the clinical pharmacist—the UUHC’ pneumonia
vaccination rate increased from 33% to 72% (this does not include patients
who refused to receive a vaccination).
|
|
