1. Create enthusiasm by celebrating the unique aspects of program. “We tried to encourage our staff,” says Vicki Hoffman, director of the orthopedic and pediatric service lines at The Stamford Hospital. “We looked at other hospitals around the country and gleaned ideas from them. We talked a lot about the unique qualities of our program. We told our staff, ‘We want to really develop this into a program that exceeds and excels in every way and we want you to be part of it.’ We don’t want to be just another hospital that does joint replacement surgery; we want to continue to develop a program that provides patients with the best possible experience. The certification has been a morale booster for the staff.”
From “Disease Specific Orthopedic Accreditation Q&A With Samford Hospital’s Vicki Hoffman.”
2. Pick a standard location for particular information on medical charts. Meg Tomlinson, administrator at Metrocrest Surgery Center in Carrollton, Texas, says her ASC sometimes came across some inconsistencies as to where physicians would write patients’ allergy information on their medical charts. In order to remedy this, the ASC established an official spot on the medical chart where physicians can fill in this critical information.
“Allergies were not always consistently placed on the same location on every form. Sometimes it would be in the upper left hand corner or some place else, but we had to put in a place where it would be consistent,” she says. “So we researched a spot on the forms and highlighted it in yellow so it is more noticeable and physicians can notice it right away.”
From “3 Quick Tips for Consistent Clinical Documentation.”
3. Focus quality improvement studies on measurable outcomes. It is critical that surgery centers choose QI studies that nurses, physicians and other staff members can gather measurable data on. Using national standards and guidelines as a comparison helps define a goal to work toward.
“One example of a QI study we did was intravenous antibiotic administration in the pre-operative area and measuring the time of administration as compared to surgical cut time. This is an example of how a focused problem forces us to look at the enterprise as a whole,” Dotty Bollinger, chief of medical operations at Laser Spine Institute in Tampa Fla., says. “There are specific guidelines based on what time you should give an IV antibiotic.”
Ms. Bollinger adds focusing a QI study on measurable data will aid the surgery center in achieving better clinical outcomes and identifying operational inefficiencies. “Even though we have the guidelines to work off for IV antibiotic administration, there are other factors prior to the cut time that could delay the time frame [in which] the patient should be receiving the antibiotic. It forces us to look at what happened in the processes all around the IV antibiotic administration, such as whether there was a delay in the OR or a delay in getting a medical chart complete.”
From “3 Easy Steps to a More Effective Quality Improvement Program.”
