Since the early 1990s, Sturdy Memorial Hospital has engaged in substantive, structured quality improvement programming. All departments, including medical staff departments, are involved.
Quality and Service Excellence Program–Departments set annual goals to measurably improve competency, quality and service. Department leaders report three times per year on goal attainment.
Adverse Events Initiative–A unique undertaking involving a committee of physicians, nurses, pharmacists and support staff that analyzes clinical processes, identifies opportunities for errors
to reach patients, and designs and implements failsafes to prevent errors from reaching patients. All failsafes are audited after implementation.
Quality Standards in Medicine (QSM)-100% of discharges and day surgery cases are abstracted and compared to quality screens. Those that fail are subjected to physician peer review. Results that represent meaningful educational opportunities are presented and discussed by departments to facilitate changes in practice or policy.
Clinical Risk Committee–Clinical department heads and executives review performance against safety and quality initiatives mandated by regulation and statute.
The public release of our “nursing-sensitive” measures allows us to present a picture of our hospital performance. We consider actual incidences as well as percentages, since percentages are not necessarily useful when there are a small number of cases. The public data provides us with the opportunity to learn from others so that we can continuously improve care.
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