Elk Regional Health Center recently highlighted its achievements in quality and patient safety as The Hospital & Health System Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) released its second annual quality and patient safety report, located here.
The report, Pennsylvania Hospital Quality: Achieving More Together, provides an overview of the quality and patient safety initiatives being undertaken in hospitals across the Commonwealth.
At Elk Regional, quality and patient safety have been advanced through the implementation of a wide variety of new initiatives at Elk Regional Health Center and Pinecrest Manor, the Health Center’s long-term care facility.
“Elk Regional’s goal is to be the premier provider of health and wellness services in the communities it serves,” said Gregory P. Bauer, the President and CEO of Elk Regional Health System. “We are realizing that goal through a focus on quality at all levels of the Health System. We are deeply committed to the development and enhancement of quality indicators and programs that promote clinical care and safety improvements not only at the point of patient care but throughout the facility as well.”
Elk Regional Health Center recently joined “Quality Blue Lite,” an initiative of Highmark, Inc. that strives to improve quality of care and the efficiency with which care is provided by aligning provider reimbursement with performance. Providers such as Elk Regional are evaluated using a rigorous performance measurement system that includes benchmarks in the categories of quality and cost.
As part of the “Quality Blue Lite” program, the Health Center’s quality programs will be measured in several categories. Program evaluations will be performed twice per year utilizing defined, standardized performance metrics established by national quality organizations, such as the National Quality Forum, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Healthcare Safety Network, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
A new quality initiative in place at Pinecrest Manor focuses on five categories of care and works to improve them by using evidence based guidelines that are considered the gold standard for best practice. The guidelines are the result of years of research by institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The quality team at Pinecrest is focusing upon five categories of care that they consider most important for the quality of life of the facility’s residents: pressure ulcers, urinary tract infections, pain management, falls with major injuries, and activities of daily living. Measures to address these categories of care have been put into place and are revisited and reevaluated regularly.
The HAP report on quality and patient safety summarizes a number of notable achievements that have positioned Pennsylvania hospitals as national leaders in quality and safety, and contains examples of hospital successes in the areas of infection prevention, obstetrical adverse events, reduction of readmissions, and universal vaccination.
The report also highlights the work of the Pennsylvania Hospital Engagement Network (PA-HEN), part of the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Partnership for Patients initiative. To date, 138 Pennsylvania hospitals and health systems, including Elk Regional, have committed to participating in the network, which is aligned with national goals of achieving a 40 percent reduction in preventable harm and a 20 percent reduction in preventable readmissions by the end of 2013.
“Our improvements in quality and patient safety have been made possible by the continuous dedication and leadership of physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals,” Mr. Bauer said. “As state and federal lawmakers make critical fiscal decisions, it is imperative that they not cut funding to hospitals. Without adequate reimbursement, we cannot sustain quality and patient safety advances at the same pace.”
