Dayton Children's Hospital participating in national effort to improve patient safety in children's hospitals

Dayton Children’s Hospital is participating in a first-of-its-kind effort by 78 children’s hospitals in the country to improve patient safety.

“As one of the original children’s hospital involved in this initiative beginning in 2009, it’s truly amazing to see how the focus on improving patient safety has grown and impacting the health care we deliver,” says Adam Mezoff, MD, CPE, vice president and chief medical officer at Dayton Children’s. “At Dayton Children’s, we are fortunate that we have been able to share our best practices while learning from others in a truly collaborative environment. This work is important because it’s right for kids.”

Through transparent sharing of data, successes and learnings, Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS) is working to achieve specific goals to reduce harm in pediatric hospitals across the country. Specifically, by year-end 2014, SPS hospitals will work to achieve a 40 percent reduction in certain hospital-acquired conditions, a 20 percent reduction in readmissions and a 25 percent reduction in serious safety events.

To achieve these goals, SPS hospitals will be working through a series of network phases that allow hospitals to learn from peer institutions through an “all teach, all learn” approach, while developing and implementing effective prevention standards that will be made available to all hospitals that care for children nationwide. Hospitals are also employing the cultural transformation strategies of other high reliability industries—such as nuclear engineering and naval aviation—to significantly reduce harm.

“Before this effort, we would have to look at adult health care data and make it work for the pediatric population,” says Hila Collins, MS, RN, CPNP-AC, CIC, director of the clinical safety and high reliability department and the co-leader of the “falls” hospital acquired conditions team at the national level. “Now we are able to share information and best practices with leading children’s hospitals across the country to ensure children in our region get the great outcomes they deserve.”

 “Perhaps the most unique and groundbreaking nature of our work is that while we are in essence competitors, we’ve put that competition aside when it comes to patient safety,” said Michael Fisher, SPS chairman and CEO of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. “We transparently share across our institutions with one simple goal in mind: to ensure every child we care for goes home safely with their families.”

As of September 30, 2013, the network worked together to reduce the average rate of five hospital acquired conditions— catheter-associated urinary tract infections, central line associated blood stream infections, injuries from moderate or greater falls, obstetrical adverse events and surgical site infections. SPS has also seen a reduction in harm for adverse drug events and pressure ulcers over the past 12 months.

SPS began in Ohio in 2009 as a network of eight hospitals. It has now expanded to 78 hospitals across the country, all focused on reducing harm by addressing specific hospital acquired conditions and building a “culture of safety” within each hospital.

SPS receives funding from the federal Partnership for Patients initiative, a nationwide public-private collaboration to improve the quality, safety and affordability of health care for all Americans. SPS is the only such effort in the nation that is focused on improving pediatric care and reducing associated Medicaid costs.

More information about the Partnership for Patients initiative is available at partnershipforpatients.cms.gov.  More information about the Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety is available at solutionsforpatientsafety.org.

For more information, contact: 
Jessica Saunders 
Injury Prevention Coordinator 
Phone: 937-641-3666 
marketing@childrensdayton.org