Qualis Health Honors Idaho Groups For Healthcare Quality Improvements
7th Annual Idaho Conference on Healthcare Quality Improvement
Boise, ID - Qualis Health, a healthcare quality improvement organization with offices in Boise, will present its Award of Excellence in Healthcare Quality to Idaho organizations that have made measurable improvements in the quality of healthcare in Idaho.
The awards will be presented at a lunch ceremony during the 7th Annual Idaho Conference on Healthcare Quality Improvement, a Qualis Health-sponsored educational summit from 7:30 a.m. on April 4 to 12 noon on April 5 at the Doubletree Hotel Boise Riverside. The event addresses topics in patient safety and features presentations by national experts in healthcare quality improvement.
The six award-winning organizations applied principles of quality improvement, affecting the healthcare of thousands in Idaho. Organizations receiving the prestigious Award of Excellence in Healthcare Quality were Mercy Medical Center, and Guardian Home Care and Hospice, both of Nampa; Gooding County Memorial Hospital, of Gooding; Magic Valley Regional Medical Center, of Twin Falls; St. Joseph Regional Medical Center Home Health, in Lewiston; and Clearwater Health and Rehabilitation, in Orofino. Their achievements promise to improve healthcare quality for years to come.
"The nominations we received for the award this year demonstrate that many organizations in Idaho are making meaningful improvements in the quality and efficiency of healthcare," said Patty Mahrt, RN, MS, MBA, director of Qualis Health's Boise office and awards program manager. "The committee judging the nominations, as does Qualis Health, felt that the excellent work done by these six organizations deserved special recognition."
Mercy Medical Center, a 152-bed hospital based in Nampa, will be recognized through the Award of Excellence in Healthcare Quality for their innovative use of case managers to improve clinical quality measures. Applying the Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) methodology, a systematic approach to designing new processes, the hospital made improvements in publicly reported clinical indicators over the past three years. The organization is now considered among the highest rated facilities in the country on most clinical quality measures.
Gooding County Memorial Hospital, a critical access inpatient facility in Gooding, will be presented the Award of Excellence in Healthcare Quality for improving staff compliance in hand hygiene among clinical staff. Because effective hand hygiene is shown to reduce the transmission of drug resistant organisms to patients, the facility focused its program on improving staff education and increasing the number of hand rub dispensers strategically located throughout the facility. Over the course of a few years, this resulted in 98 percent staff compliance.
For their extensive commitment to improve patient safety and increase the consistency of care, Magic Valley Regional Medical Center, a 165-bed facility based in Twin Falls, will be given the Award of Excellence in Healthcare Quality. The facility developed and sustained a comprehensive patient relations program and used patient feedback and input improve the quality of service provided.
In recognition of their efforts, Guardian Home Care and Hospice, of Nampa, will be presented the Award of Excellence in Healthcare Quality. The agency, which provides skilled home care, engaged in a multi-faceted effort to reduce avoidable acute care hospitalization. Guardian Home Care and Hospice developed tools, increased collaboration with other healthcare delivery systems, developed an ongoing communication system informing staff of the status, interventions and education needed for "at risk" patients and implemented an ongoing evaluation system to ensure the appropriate utilization of systems and tools.
Lewiston-based St. Joseph Regional Medical Center Home Health, a rural home health agency, will receive the Award of Excellence in Healthcare Quality for their multi-disciplinary approach to reducing pain (that interfered with activity) among home healthcare patients. St. Joseph Regional Medical Center Home Health was able to achieve these results by developing a clinical assessment protocol, creating directives focused on enhancing consistency and continuity of pain care guidelines and deploying tools to ensure clinician compliance.
Clearwater Health and Rehabilitation, a 60-bed rural skilled nursing facility in Orofino, will receive the Award of Excellence in Healthcare Quality for its successful quality improvement process redesign efforts. By reconfiguring and simplifying the quality improvement and data collection processes, the organization enabled staff to more readily identify quality-of-care issues and initiate appropriate courses of action. These efforts resulted in less resident falls, reduced pressure ulcers, a new tracking system for resident vaccinations and greater staff autonomy in making care decisions.
SOURCE: Qualis Health