Hospitals in pursuit of excellence

The 2016 chairman's columns have focused on  inspiring stories about hospitals and health systems...

All future performance improvement projects will address health care disparities. That’s the comm...

Hospitals and health systems are working hard to ensure that every person in every community rece...

Improving the health of communities where people live, work and play is more important than ever....

When hospitals engage community members and patients in the community health assessment process, ...

Quality and safety are “top of the agenda” at urban and rural hospitals across the country. At Ho...

To improve community health, Mason General Hospital & Family of Clinics (MGH&FC) in Shelton, Wash...

After recognizing asthma as a major condition for many patients in the emergency department, St. ...

Hospitals are working to achieve all elements of the Triple Aim by redesigning traditional ways o...

Increasingly, hospitals and health systems are forming partnerships to attain the new and demandi...

More and more hospitals are offering a wide variety of health and wellness programs and benefits ...

Hospitals and health systems are intensifying their focus to ensure all patients receive high-qua...

This joint HPOE and Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital webinar discus...

Hospitals are helping students with disabilities transition from school to the workplace. Mat-Su ...

The AHA-McKesson Quest for Quality Prize recognizes leadership and innovation in quality improvem...

Focusing on community needs using a data-driven approach and local resources has improved care fo...

Adirondack Health is working with multiple sectors of the community, such as the Franklin County ...

MedEx Bedside Prescription Delivery is the very first bedside medication delivery service for hos...

Here’s an excellent opportunity for health care executives to study and discuss pressing health c...

Homelessness is a hidden but real issue in Chittenden County, VT. University of Vermont Medical C...

In 2016, Cleveland Clinic was honored by the American Hospital Association (AHA) with its Equity ...

Hospitals can create a culture of health in their own organization and in the community by develo...

Analyzing contributing factors and implementing targeted, sustainable solutions have helped hospi...

While much work has been done in the hospital setting, patient falls continue to be a problem. As...

In July 2016, the AHA/HRET Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) 2.0 hosted a state hospital associat...

The AHA/HRET Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) 2.0 identifies best practices proven to reduce hos...

Since September 2015, the American Hospital Association (AHA)/Health Research & Educational Trust...

A health care collaboration in rural Missouri is expanding patient access to primary and behavior...

Since 2012, the Aiming for Zero program at Northwell Hospital is continuously working to reduce C...

Northern Westchester Hospital is improving their patients’ experience through the Food Is Care pr...

The St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center created a Hypoglycemic Task Force to recognize and decrea...

At hospitals and health care systems across the country, executives, clinicians and staff are lea...

  The patient experience is more important today than ever before, with payments tied to patie...

Using the Triple Aim framework, hospitals and health systems can effectively address behavioral h...

Since September 2015, the AHA/HRET HEN 2.0 hospitals have been working to reduce hospital-acquire...

As consumers increasingly rely on information and reviews from a variety of sources to access all...

The best way to prevent catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) is to limit the use ...

Reducing and eliminating patient harm are at the forefront of patient safety and continue to be a...

According to the 2008 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/National Center for Health Stati...

At a 350 bed community teaching hospital, potentially preventive readmissions data from the Illin...

The systemwide Obstetrics Care Excellence Team was formed to improve quality of care and reduce c...

This project addresses the health care system's strategic initiative to ensure interdisciplinary ...

The hospital identified an opportunity to improve its discharge planning process to allow more ti...

Bronchiolitis, one of the most costly and frequent medical diagnoses seen at the hospital, is a s...

After reducing health care-acquired deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary emboli (PE) in 2011,...

Today more than ever, it is important to focus on reducing unnecessary testing and unneeded emerg...

In response to high readmission rates coming from the health system’s skilled nursing facility (S...

This health system's employee influenza vaccination policy compliance rate was less than 70 perce...

Restraint documentation was a challenge at the hospital for multiple reasons, including the imple...

In 2008, the health system’s program to contact discharged emergency department (ED) and immediat...

The facility partnered with local emergency medical services (EMS) providers to improve early rec...

Chronic wounds are a growing problem in the United States. Based on evidence-based research of re...

While the implementation of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ venous thromboembolism ...

Because the medical center’s lost charge capture related to IV injection and infusions totaled $8...

The problem faced by the health system was the lack of a coordinated approach for the review and ...

The hospital identified two process improvement opportunities related to medication safety effort...

Concurrent review of three core measure sets has ensured appropriate and timely patient care. The...

Hospital readmissions for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart failu...

This project explains how a multisite, outpatient breast cancer and lymphedema rehabilitation pro...

Staff at this community-based rural hospital in northwest Illinois that treats more than 18,000 e...

The hospital began working on its sepsis initiative in January 2014, after root cause analysis sh...

Advance care planning is a critical element of wellness for all adult patients, regardless of dia...

The Community Health Network (CHN) targets the socioeconomic determinants of health that are not ...

Today, about one out of three children and adolescents ages 2-19 in the United States is overweig...

This project was based on a multidisciplinary approach that focused on the admission process for ...

The Reducing Readmissions: Making Data Real project decreased acute rehospitalization rates by al...

The goal of this project was to standardize protocols for controlling patient pain following tota...

Managing the flow of patient throughput is essential to preventing overcrowding in the emergency ...

The goal was to reduce anesthesia's postoperative evaluation errors to less than 10 percent of al...

Venous thromboembolism (VTE), defined as a deep vein thrombosis and/or pulmonary emboli, is linke...

Turnaround time for immunohistochemistry (IHC) stains in the laboratory of a 500 bed tertiary car...

Limited provider appointment availability in the clinic was causing delays for patients seeking c...

The goal was to reduce delay in patient care by decreasing patient wait times for a CT exam from ...

Operational and physician leaders identified an opportunity to decrease the use of off-site telem...

Surgical site infections (SSI) lead to patient suffering, morbidity and mortality, extended lengt...

This project has decreased cycle time for medication reconciliation at time of admission and for ...

The CK-MB Test is a traditional blood test of a cardiac marker used to assist in the diagnosis of...

Studies show lipase to be as sensitive as and more specific than amylase in diagnosing pancreatit...

The 2012 New England Compounding Center tragedy and ongoing drug shortages have caused a dramatic...

Evidence-based practice supports early goal-directed therapy for patients with sepsis. Improving ...

The organization used both discrete event and live simulation methodologies to ensure the smooth ...

The organization sought to create a root cause analysis (RCA) structure that endowed greater focu...

The goal of this project was to reduce the incidence of contrast-induced neuropathy (CIN) as a re...

The emergency department (ED) was experiencing extended lengths of stay for psychiatric patients,...

Troponin is a cardiac marker for acute myocardial infarction, making this lab test a key part of ...

The emergency department (ED) was experiencing an increase in door-to-doctor times due to high pa...

Concussions are a growing problem for young athletes. The hospital’s overall goal is to educate a...

The organization used Lean Six Sigma process techniques to identify and support improved efficien...

Medical dispense overrides allow nurses to dispense medications from the Pyxis machine without ph...

Patient falls during hospitalization can lead to increased inpatient care costs, decreased patien...

The organization initiated a project identified by the Infection Control Committee to reduce Fole...

The neurosurgery service at this Level I trauma center had experienced high rates of surgical sit...

Boarding patients in the emergency department (ED) is detrimental to patient care, and evidence s...

The health system did not have an adequate process for notifying staff when a patient was on cont...

As identified in its 2014 Culture of Safety survey, the hospital’s overall mean score for the sta...

A history as a resource-challenged urban safety net hospital with a high-risk population, a lack ...

Inappropriate stress ulcer prophylaxis is a serious problem across the health care continuum. Lit...

In 2013, the facility’s hospital-onset (HO) infection rate for Clostridium difficile (C. diff) ha...

A review of the hospital’s quality indicators revealed an unacceptable rate of catheter-associate...

The project focused on managing sepsis in the emergency department and in admitted patients, with...