Hospitals in pursuit of excellence

Eliminating Harm, Improving Care

The AHA/HRET HEN project ended in December 2014, but quality improvement work continues at hospitals: Multidisciplinary teams work to advance improvement efforts to reach their quality and patient safety goals. Seventeen high-performing hospitals in the AHA/HRET HEN are featured in a new video series “High-Performing Hospitals: Eliminating Harm and Improving Care.” These hospitals were selected to tell their stories before the HEN project ended. Hospital CEOs, quality managers, trustees, clinicians and other front-line staff talk candidly about their challenges, successes and lessons learned. The hospitals worked to reduce infections, decrease unnecessary readmissions and reduce total harm across the board. Key themes are improving processes and communication, using quality indicators, and engaging leadership, staff and the community.

Nearly 1,500 hospitals in 31 states and U.S. territories participated in the AHA/HRET Hospital Engagement Network. The AHA/HRET HEN estimates its participating hospitals prevented more than 92,000 harms with cost savings of $988 million during the three-year project, part of the Partnership for Patients Campaign.