Hospitals participating in the Partnership
for Patients initiative have launched a program to prevent pressure
ulcers.
The goal of the "sprint" program, conducted by the Premier healthcare
alliance, is to make rapid, sustainable performance improvements in
pressure ulcer reduction. To do so, sprint participants will:
-
Analyze successful processes for the proactive prevention of pressure
ulcers,
-
Explore creative techniques that can be used to engage hospital staff
in evidence-based practice,
-
Compare the efficacy of products and devices available for pressure
ulcer prevention, and
-
Implement suggested tools and resources to improve performance.
Hospitals taking part in the sprint have joined with Premier to
participate in Partnership for Patients. With more than 450 hospitals
participating, Premier is the second largest of 26 Hospital Engagement
Networks (HENs) approved by CMS to participate in the initiative.
A pressure ulcer is a localized injury to the skin and/or underlying
tissue, as a result of pressure, or of pressure in combination with a
shear force or friction. More than 2.5 million people develop pressure
ulcers annually in healthcare settings and at home. Estimates suggest 50
percent of the most dangerous hospital-acquired pressure ulcers are
preventable. The goal set for Partnership for Patients hospitals is to
reduce preventable hospital-acquired pressure ulcers by 50 percent by
2013. Over three years this could prevent nearly 110,000 pressure ulcers.
The pressure ulcer sprint, conducted over 90 days, will consist of four
learning sessions. A particular measure or bundle of measures becomes a
candidate for a sprint if data shows a large opportunity for
improvement. In this case, the sprint will focus on three of the
Partnership for Patients pressure ulcer performance measures:
-
Process measure - Percentage of acute care inpatients with a pressure
ulcer or pressure ulcer risk with documented periodic assessment for
specific risk factors; and
-
Hospital-acquired pressure ulcer stages III and IV.
Sprint participants benefit from evidence-based resources, hospital
success stories and Premier's care process maps to drive improvements.
Premier will conduct sprints across all 10 of the Partnership for
Patients focus areas, which include: adverse drug events; obstetrical
adverse events; venous thromboembolism; injury from falls and
immobility; preventable readmissions; and five different
healthcare-associated infections.
Some sprints will be conducted within Premier's QUEST®
collaborative, in which 157 hospitals saved nearly 25,000 lives and $4.5
billion over three years. More than 350 hospitals participate in the
collaborative today, a number of which are in Premier's PFP HEN.
"Our experience has shown that sprints are a key way to improve
performance in the delivery of evidence-based care measures," said
Carolyn Scott, R.N., M.Ed., M.H.A., Premier service line vice president,
quality and safety. "It's an opportunity to connect hospitals nationwide
with the best clinical practices to improve quality, reduce costs and
coordinate care delivery."
Partnership for Patients, established by the Center for Medicare &
Medicaid Innovation (Innovation
Center), offers support to physicians, nurses and other clinicians
working in and out of hospitals. The goal is to keep patients from
getting injured or sicker while in the hospital so they can heal without
complications.
Specifically, participants focus on reducing preventable readmissions to
hospitals by 20 percent and reducing preventable hospital-acquired
conditions by 40 percent by the end of 2013. In doing so, CMS estimates
the partnership has the potential to, over the next three years:
-
Save 60,000 lives;
-
Reduce millions of preventable injuries and complications in patient
care; and
-
Save as much as $35 billion, including up to $10 billion in savings to
Medicare.
As a HEN, Premier is helping identify the solutions already working to
reduce healthcare-acquired conditions, and spread them to other
hospitals and healthcare providers.
Premier's HEN participants benefit from Premier's:
-
Intensive training and education programs to make patient care safer;
-
Technical assistance to achieve quality measurement goals;
-
Online repository of safety literature and implementation strategies;
-
National and regional best practice sharing forums; and
-
Data benchmarking and tracking to measure progress in meeting quality
improvement goals.