University Hospitals, Lake Health, UH Cleveland Medical Center Receives 2021 Patient Safety Awards

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(Columbus, OH 43215) In recognition of National Patient Safety Awareness Week (March 14-20), the Ohio Patient Safety Institute announced Lake Health (Painesville) and University Hospitals (Beachwood) as the recipients of the 13th Annual Dr. Frank Dono Best Practice Award. University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center receives OPSI’s annual Patient Engagement Best Practice Award. 

“This year’s honorees have dedicated impactful resources to establish and advance patient safety programs throughout their institutions enabling greater outcomes for patients,” said Rosalie Weakland, RN, MSN, CPHQ, FACHE, senior director of quality programs, Ohio Hospital Association. “Ohio hospitals are a vital source of health care and wellness for our communities. With more 265,000 employees and more than 33 million patient encounters in 2019 they are making significant contributions to advancing effective practices in delivering care.”

“Lake Health is continually evaluating care delivery and processes to ensure that its patients and their families receive care that is safe, patient-centered, effective, efficient, timely and equitable,” said Joyce Taylor, RN, MBA, CPHQ, Chief Quality Officer, Lake Health. “To achieve that goal, we continually monitor the care we provide to identify areas of focus.” Lake Health’s Quality Improvement Coordinating Committee and Clinical Integration Committee established a program focused on post-operative outcomes. After conducting an analysis of patient outcomes, an opportunity was identified to address respiratory-related complications. This project involved many departments and service lines and used multiple lean/continuous improvement tools, including creating a process map of the care patients receive post-operatively in the acute care setting. The Lake Health team focused on identifying the true start of care delivery and developed an over-arching project completion plan organizing the project into manageable and smaller segments.  Using this approach, Lake Health was able to implement interventions to improve care delivery between primary care providers, the surgeon, pre-admission testing, surgery, acute inpatient care and discharge follow-up, leading to improved patient outcomes.

University Hospitals developed a COVID-19 pre-planning and outbreak management for long-term care facilities. The overarching goals of this project were: 1) to help facilities prepare their staff, facility and providers for COVID-19 outbreaks; and 2) to enable and empower long-term care facilities to manage outbreaks when they occurred.  

UH created a "playbook" which included COVID-19 infection control and prevention guidance from local, state, national and international agencies as well as best practice protocols from our hospital system incident command leadership. This Playbook was updated regularly and distributed to all Long-Term Care Facilities in Northeast Ohio with corresponding virtual and live educational programs.  The "Playbook" was organized into a "Seven Pillars" approach with those pillars being: 1) team building, 2) transmission reduction, 3) triage preparedness, 4) targeted conversations, 5) telehealth capabilities, 6) testing & treating in place, and 7) transitions of care.

University Hospital Cleveland Medical Center established a patient engagement strategy to monitor patients in their own homes with an affordable, disposable pulse oximeter paired with a cell phone application. Their program was designed to increase patient and family engagement in the health care process, prevent a potential hospitalization for a patient, protect a potentially at-risk patient from infection exposures, and to preserve hospital capacity. The novel approach using MASIMO monitoring inspired confidence in and empowered patients, their loved ones and bed-side care-givers, thus strengthening the patient/family-healthcare bond.

The OPSI Best Practice Awards are presented annually to Ohio health care providers that display excellence in the following areas:
• Improving patient safety,
• Developing innovative programs to improve patient safety,
• Creating best practices that other Ohio health care providers can adopt/adapt, and
• Developing a culture of collaboration that improves patient safety.

The OPSI Awards are named in honor of Frank Dono, DO, a long-time leader and pioneer of patient safety and quality. Throughout his 50 years as a health care professional, Dono was a pioneer in the cause for patient safety, and his leadership was instrumental in helping develop strong safety standards and practices in health care. He was passionate about patient safety across the continuum of care. He had been one of the key OPSI board members since its inception and contributed to helping the organization with many successful projects.

OPSI proudly supports national Patient Safety Awareness Week to promote and disseminate strategies to ensure patient safety. OPSI is committed to providing education and resources to promote patient safety information and develop programs for hospital and provider safety, including medication safety, surgical and procedural safety, infection prevention, safety culture and best practices. 

About OPSI: 
Founded in 2001, the Ohio Patient Safety Institute is an organization dedicated to improving patient safety in Ohio. The Institute is a subsidiary of the Ohio Health Council, which was founded by the Ohio Hospital Association, the Ohio State Medical Association, and the Ohio Osteopathic Association. Through this collaboration and common effort, OPSI has the ability to work with hospitals and physicians in Ohio to improve patient safety for all Ohioans.