What VVMC Is Doing To Make Healthcare Safer?

The 5 Million Lives Campaign is a nationwide initiative to protect patients across the United States from five million incidents of medical harm over two years. The campaign is being organized at the national level by the Massachusetts-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). In Colorado, the campaign is being supported by TheColorado Trust. VVMC takes patient safety very seriously and will implement new safety interventions over the next 12 months. The interventions of the 5 Million Lives Campaign are widely accepted as proper standards of care. They are simple in nature and VVMC is already implementing some of them. The 5 Million Lives Campaign is unique because it gives hospitals the tools to ensure 100% compliance on the part of all hospital staff, providing for the best possible outcomes for each and every patient.

VVMC Safety Initiatives Supported by the 5 Million Lives Campaign:

1. Deploy rapid response teams (RRT) at the first sign of patient decline.  A rapid response team made up of the patients’ primary care nurse, a critical care nurse and a respiratory therapist will work together if it appears the patients is getting sicker quickly. The team is called and takes action quickly. The team comes to patients in the PCU and Women & Children’s area prepared to evaluate the patient immediately.
2. Prevent Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections.  VVMC can take simple precautions to prevent MRSA from entering the hospital and spreading between patients. Proper hand washing, cleaning patient rooms and patient equipment, and using contact precautions are key to preventing MRSA spread between patients. 
3. Prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia.  VVMC will continue to implement simple steps to reduce the risk of ventilator-associated pneumonia including raising the head of the patient’s bed between 30 and 40 degrees, giving the patient medication to prevent stomach ulcers, preventing blood clots when patients are lying very still, and seeing if patients can breathe on their own when waking up after surgery.
4. Prevent surgical site infections and reducing surgical complications.  VVMC can prevent surgical site infections by reliably implementing ideal care for all surgical patients including use of appropriate antibiotics, appropriate hair removal (such as clipping vs. shaving) and other actions. Simple steps that are implemented at every surgery can cut the risk of complications, including preventing pneumonia and infection, administering beta blockers, and prevent deep-vein thrombosis (DVT).
5. Prevent central line infections.  Doctors and nurses can help prevent central line infections by using proper hand hygiene, wearing sterile clothing, cleaning the patient’s skin when the line is put in and checking the line for infection each day. 
6. Prevent Pressure Ulcers.  VVMC can help prevent pressure ulcers by monitoring patients’ skin every day, keeping patients as clean and dry as possible, decreasing pressure on patients’ skin and keeping patients hydrated and well fed.
7. Get Boards on Board.  This intervention focuses on one of the most crucial attributes of those organizations that have demonstrated the greatest sustained progress in patient safety: deeply engaged hospital leadership, starting with the Board of Trustees.

VVMC is honored to be part of the 5 Million Lives Campaign and assisting in the goal of saving patients from harm.

For more information call Heather M. Gilmartin, Nurse Epidemiologist
at 970-479-7289.