Urban
At any one time, more than 100 patients are in this busy and complex ED. Historically, staff actively tracked patients with manual entry of a patient's location into a computer system. Keeping track of such a high number of patients in real time was clearly a challenge given the ongoing…
The Problem Pneumonia accounts for 15 percent of all hospital-associated infections. It is the second most common hospital-associated infection after urinary tract infections. The primary risk factor for the development of hospital-associated bacterial pneumonia is mechanical ventilation. Fatality…
The Problem Advocate Christ Medical Center's space in the admittance bay area and resource usage was unable to meet the increase in demand. An average GI patient experienced 70 minutes of total wait time, with 19 minutes of this wait time occurring in the procedure room. Only 24 percent of GI…
The Problem In a 2008 medical staff satisfaction survey, 93 percent of Advocate Good Shepherd physicians indicated overall satisfaction with the hospital. However, the satisfaction rate for hospital laboratory turnaround times was between 50 percent and 60 percent. In addition, a discharge-time…
The ProblemMedication reconciliation—comparing a patient's medication orders to all medications the patient has been taking—helps to avoid medication errors such as omissions, duplications, dosing errors and drug interactions. The Institute for Safe Medication Practice estimates…
The Problem Inapproprate inductions of labor, defined as elective iductions less than 39 weeks gestation or whent he cervix is not readily inducible, have a negative impact on patient safety. It increases the risk of admission intot he NICU for the infant. The Solution An obstetrical task force was…
The Problem While all facitilites aspire to limit the incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia, doing so within the confines of a spinal cord injury population presents unique challenges. In April of 2008, we had several patients, some of whom had spinal cord injuries and were on ventilators,…