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Emory Healthcare and Emory hospitals win statewide patient safety awards

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Janet Christenbury

ATLANTA – The Georgia Hospital Association Partnership for Health and Accountability (PHA) presented eight of its prestigious Patient Safety and Quality Awards to Emory Healthcare and three Emory Healthcare hospitals: Emory University Hospital Midtown, Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital and Emory University Orthopaedics & Spine Hospital. These annual awards recognize Georgia health care organizations for achievements in reducing the risk of medical errors and improving patient safety and medical outcomes.

“We are extremely proud of our teams for their exceptional work in ensuring safe, quality care environments for our patients,” says Jonathan S. Lewin, MD, CEO of Emory Healthcare. “Despite a global pandemic, our workforce has risen to the occasion to develop new ideas and care solutions for our patients to improve lives and provide hope. Congratulations to our award winners!”

Emory Healthcare and Emory hospitals were honored with the following awards:

Emory Healthcare

  • First place in the Hospitals/Health Systems category for its project titled, “EHC Event Review Redefined Process,” which optimized the event review process across the system. The project improved protocols and communication among staff, resulting in a reduction of harmful events.

  • Second place in the Hospitals/Health Systems category for its project titled, “Fix the Roof before it Rains: Developing Electronic Apparent Cause Analysis to Evaluate Patient Safety Events.” This project translated a paper-based incident reporting system into a user-friendly electronic format, resulting in reduced harm and improved patient safety.

Emory University Hospital Midtown

  • First place in the Hospitals with Greater than 300 Beds category for its project titled, “Improving Venous Thromboembolism Prophylaxis Compliance Among Bariatric Surgery Patients.” The project convened a multidisciplinary group of bariatric clinicians who developed protocols to reduce the incidence of blood clots in bariatric surgery patients.
  • First place in the Josh Nahum Infection Prevention and Control category for its project that reduced contamination in blood cultures, “Decreasing Blood Culture Contamination Rates in the Emergency Department by Using a Blood Diversion Device.” The project successfully achieved a blood culture contamination rate lower than the national benchmark, resulting in fewer false-positive blood cultures and inappropriate antibiotic treatments.

  • Second place in the Josh Nahum Infection Prevention and Control category for “Triad Partnership: Forming Zero Heroes for Eliminating CLABSIs on a Medical/Oncology Unit,” a project that reduced central line-associated blood stream infections (CLABSI) in oncology patients. This partnership between nursing, vascular access and infection prevention teams to improve patient outcomes resulted in zero CLABSIs on the hematology-oncology unit since January 2019.

  • A Circle of Excellence Award, an honor given to hospitals and health systems that have demonstrated a sustained commitment to quality and patient safety as evidenced by not only winning a patient safety award in 2020, but by earning three or more PHA Patient Safety Awards within the previous five years.

 Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital

  • Third place in the Josh Nahum Infection Prevention and Control category for its project that decreased hospital-onset infections titled, “As Easy as A, B, C. diff: A Comprehensive Approach to Reducing difficile Infections.” The project convened an interprofessional team to develop a C. difficile infection (CDI) testing algorithm. This, along with additional interventions, reduced the rate of hospital-onset CDI by 64 percent after one year.

Emory University Orthopaedics & Spine Hospital

  • Second place in the Specialty Hospitals category for its project that educated patients on safely disposing of unused medications titled, “At Your Disposal: A Pilot for Safely Discarding Medication in Post-Operative Patients.” Every patient discharged with a prescription for an opioid medication received disposal education and powder disposal packets as part of an effort to reduce access to unused prescription opioids.

“Hospitals are diligently working to ensure the safety of their patients, especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Georgia Hospital Association President and CEO Earl Rogers. “We applaud Emory Healthcare, Emory University Hospital Midtown, Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital and Emory Orthopaedics & Spine Hospital for their successes and for making critical progress in patient safety while ensuring the best and safest care possible for patients.”
 
The Partnership for Health and Accountability (PHA), an affiliate of Georgia Hospital Association, was established in January 2000 to improve patient care and patient safety in hospitals and other health care facilities, and create healthy communities.


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