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The Problem Hand hygiene is the single most important way to prevent the spread of infection in a hospital. Most health care personnel do not perform hand hygiene as often as they should. To improve the performance of health care staff in hand hygiene, it first must be measured accurately. Bronson…
The Problem Falls can occur at any time during the hospitalization, resulting in complications such as soft tissue changes, fracture and decline in function, as well as increased length of stay and hospital costs. Hospital costs for treatment of a fall in an elderly patient have been estimated at…
The Problem The emergency department corrective action team began May 2, 2007 with the mission statement to improve the emergency department process. The goals were to improve patient satisfaction to greater than 88 percent, decrease length of stay to less than 120 minutes, reduce left without…
The Problem According to the American Heart Association, heart failure affects about 5.7 million Americans, with 670,000 new cases reported each year. Patients with heart failure typically require frequent hospital admissions, making it one of the most costly cardiovascular ill-nesses. Readmission…
Nurses have always struggled with balancing time between their workloads. Employee satisfaction and retention continue to be challenges, as the volume of patients and demand for quality care rises. A new system needed to be created to relieve the burden of administrative tasks from the nurse,…
The Problem Central line-associated bloodstream infections have vexed hospitals performing interventional care for years. While the rate at Allegheny General Hospital was no worse than the national average, it was decided that meeting that goal was unacceptably low and that patients were being…
The Problem
In 2007, all 19 regional perinatal programs in New York began looking at the reduction of central-line associated blood stream infections because none of them were without incidence.
The Solution
The Problem Advocate Lutheran General Hospital admits 32 percent of its emergency department patients per month on average. With this busy of an ED and such high-volume admission, it is critical that all clinicians and departments prioritize and support the patient through the process.
The Problem Several processes used in the care of patients of Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center's emergency department had great opportunity to reduce waste, remove nonvalue-added steps and increase the efficiency of patient care. Several pain points were identified:
These numbers represent rough 10 year estimates for advocacy purposes based on publicly available data from CMS. These numbers should not be used for budgeting purposes.