Hospitals in pursuit of excellence

National Patient Safety Awareness Week

March 6-12 is designated as National Patient Safety Awareness Week...and we know that America's hospitals are working diligently every day to improve care, enhance patient safety and reduce the possibility of errors.  Hospitals across the country are engaged in many different activities and initiatives designed to improve care for the individual patients and communities they serve. This week, in particular, take the opportunity to spotlight your work and progress. One great example is how the University of Chicago Medical Center is using a checklist to improve quality of care for hospitalized medical patients. A team led by Andrew Davis, M.D., and Vineet Arora, M.D., explored using a checklist to target four key quality indicators in general medicine: Immunization against pneumococcal infection and prevention of pressure ulcers (bed sores), Catheter-associated urinary tract infections, and Deep venous thrombosis. Thus, the IBCD checklist was created, using methods from published literature such as Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto. Attending physicians were asked to use the checklist after reviewing resident care. In July 2010, 75 percent of clinical teams used the IBCD checklist for 92 percent of patients, increasing overall adherence to process of care measures from 63 percent to 86 percent. An iPhone application of the checklist is now being developed. For more information, contact Dr. Arora, hospitalist and associate professor of medicine, at varora@uchicago.edu.