Innovations

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center and Lower Manhattan Hospital faced multiple challenges.

Studies show that home visits to patients recently discharged from the hospital can help prevent unnecessary readmission.¹ Providing continuing care instructions to patients in their homes—where they may be less overwhelmed than in the hospital—may also be a key mechanism for preventing readmission.² Home visit clinicians and technicians can note any health concerns in the home environment and help patients understand their care plan in the context of that environment.²

Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a serious but preventable medical condition in which blood clots form in the veins.

An increasing volume of patients presenting for acute care can create a need for more ICU beds and intensivists and lead to longer wait times and boarding of critically ill patients in the emergency department (ED).¹ Data suggest that boarding of critically ill patients for more than 6 hours in the emergency department leads to poorer outcomes and increased mortality.^2,3 To address this issue, University of Michigan Health, part of Michigan Medicine, developed an ED-based ICU, the first of its kind, in its 1,000-bed adult hospital.

A lack of situational awareness can lead to delayed recognition of patient deterioration. This children’s hospital developed and implemented a situational awareness framework designed to decrease emergency transfers to the intensive care unit (ICU).

Checklists are used in many clinical settings to improve patient safety. This pediatric intensive care unit updated a static checklist, eSIMPLE, to a dynamic, decision-support enhanced checklist, eSIMPLER. 

Mobile health apps are becoming increasingly popular for patients and clinicians. This innovative study implemented a pharmacist-led mobile health based intervention to improve medication safety of patients following kidney transplant.

With the PICC Use Initiative, the Michigan HMS, which currently includes 62 non-governmental hospitals in Michigan, aims to improve the safety of hospitalized patients by eliminating unnecessary PICC use and preventing PICC-associated complications. Since infectious diseases (ID) physician approval for PICC use is one promising strategy to reduce inappropriate use, the consortium helped promote and facilitate data collection for this patient safety strategy.

The Revised Safer Dx Instrument provides a standardized list of questions to help users retrospectively identify and assess the likelihood of a missed diagnosis in a healthcare episode. Results of the assessment are intended for use in system-level safety improvement efforts, clinician feedback, and patient safety research.

The relationship between burnout among healthcare workers and poor patient safety outcomes has been well-documented

Understanding the ways in which human factors, such as non-technical skills, influence individual and team performance can ultimately improve patient safety, particularly in high-intensity settings such as operating rooms.

Medication administration errors are a common source of patient harm.

The handshake antimicrobial stewardship program (HS-ASP) was developed and implemented at Children’s Hospital Colorado (CHCO). In 2014, the CHOC HS-ASP team began labeling specific interventions as “Great Catches” which were considered to have altered, or had the potential to alter, the patient’s trajectory of care. CHOC researchers used these "Great Catches" to identify potential diagnostic errors.

The Behavioral Health Vital Signs (BHVS) screener is a patient questionnaire input into the electronic health record for depressive symptoms, alcohol and substance use, and interpersonal violence. Widespread staff education and a standardized workflow were developed to ensure that BHVS was implemented in all primary care clinics within the San Francisco Health Network.

The Patient Safe-D(ischarge) program used standardized tools to educate patients about their discharge needs, test understanding of those needs, and improve medication reconciliation at admission and discharge. A quasi-randomized controlled trial of the program found that it significantly increased patients' understanding and knowledge of their diagnoses, treatment, and required follow-up care.

The Hospital at Home^sm program provides hospital-level care (including daily physician and nurse visits, diagnostic testing, treatment, and other support) in a patient's home as a full substitute for acute hospital care for selected conditions that are common among seniors. Studies have shown that the Hospital at Home program results in lower length of stay, costs, readmission rates, and complications than does traditional inpatient care, and surveys indicate higher levels of patient and family member satisfaction than with traditional care.

Care management staff (such as nurses, community health workers, health coaches, social workers, or other clinical staff) use software-based protocols to screen older clients' medications and collaborate with pharmacists and physicians to reduce the risk of medication errors and adverse effects. The HomeMeds Medication Safety Program identified and addressed targeted medication problems, leading to fewer cases of therapeutic duplication and more appropriate medication use for cardiovascular medications, NSAIDS, psychotropics and overall medication use.

Project Nurture provides patients with substance use disorder (SUD) prenatal care, inpatient maternity care, postpartum care, and infant pediatric care. Women enrolled in the program receive Level 1 addiction treatment (i.e., outpatient services) from an integrated care team that includes MDs, nurse practitioners, doulas, certified recovery mentors, certified alcohol and drug counselors, and social workers and other mental health professionals. If indicated, they can also receive medication-assisted treatment (MAT) using methadone or buprenorphine.

Trauma staff at The Alfred Hospital use a computerized decision support system to guide the care of patients during the critical first 60 minutes of resuscitation. Known as the Trauma Reception and Resuscitation System (TR&R®), this program generates prompts based on more than 40 algorithms and real-time clinical data, including patient vital signs and information entered by a trauma nurse. Displayed on a large overhead monitor, these prompts are used by clinicians to direct the care of trauma patients and to facilitate documentation and communication.