Current Quality Initiatives

At Adventist Health and Rideout, we work to implement processes and practices that have been proven to produce the very best outcomes for our patients. Many of these metrics are required in our industry, however, we also focus on those that are high risk, high volume, problem prone, or mission-critical in our pursuit of clinical excellence, operational efficiency, or for the betterment of patient/employee/physician satisfaction/. Individual employees and teams of patient care professionals continually study these outcomes and safety practices, and make recommendations to further improve the way we provide care.

As a result of intensive work over the past few years, many of our patient safety indicators at Adventist Health and Rideout have improved significantly. (Of Note: The information reported by hospital watchdog groups and general media is sometimes based on old statistics - not the most recently available internal data.)

Below is a sampling of patient safety and quality efforts currently underway:

• Improving Sepsis Outcomes and Bundle Compliance (doing the right things, at the right time, to ensure patients with serious infections receive high quality and evidence-based care). We have reeducated our providers and nursing team, continually review for compliance, and share opportunities for lessons learned in real time. As a result of these initiatives, in the second quarter of 2021, we are nearing top decile performance in achievement of bundle compliance, and have seen a decrease in overall mortality.

• Pressure Injury Prevention (sores that happen on areas of the skin that are under prolonged pressure). During the peak of the pandemic, like many institutions, we witnessed an increase in reportable hospital acquired pressure injuries. We are pleased to announce that, through increased focus on assessment practices and preventative measures, we have seen a decrease back to our baseline performance.

• Surgical Site Infection (or, SSI - an infection that occurs following a surgery or procedure). They can cause pain, a rehospitalization or at times a second surgery. An interdisciplinary team has been working to ensure best practices are followed before, during, and after the procedure, which has contributed to an overall reduction in SSI rates.