Improving Quality and Safety at SVMC
Contact Patient Safety
(802) 447-4054
100 Hospital Drive
Bennington, VT 05201
mac1@phin.org
Quality and safety has always been important in health care, but only recently have hospitals focused on improving the systems that doctors and nurses use to provide care. Read on to learn more about how SVMC is working to make our hospital the safest in the nation.
SVMC Reduces Medication Errors for Patients on Blood Thinners
Blood thinners can be very dangerous. They are a leading cause of medical errors that can cause patients harm. As a follow-up to a successful 2005 program to reduce medical errors in patients on blood thinners, SVMC started a new program to focus on surgical patients. The hospital developed a system to evaluate all surgical patients on injectable anticoagulation therapy before and after surgery. This new system already is leading to safer surgery for SVMC patients. Read More
Team Reduces Time to Diagnose Breast Lesions
A team of experts at SVMC worked to revamp processes to reduce the average time it takes to diagnose women with suspicious breast lesions. Now, thanks to their efforts, the average is only 12 days. Women with less complicated cases, such as younger women who are not taking blood thinners, can be diagnosed in about a week. Read More
Barcoded Wristbands Improve Medication Accuracy
SVMC recently began using barcoded wristbands as part of its electronic medication administration system. The new system improves the accuracy of patient identification and helps ensure that the right medications get to the right patients. To learn more about how SVMC is leading the way in this new technology, read Patient Identification: Producing a Better Barcoded Wristband. This article on our work was written by SVMC's own Charles Still and Ed Lanoue and published in Patient Safety and Quality in Healthcare. It is posted our website courtesy of the magazine, which holds the copyright.
Quality Improvement Projects from 2006
SVMC Improves Care for Patients at the End of Life
Most people want to die at home, but making that happen is often challenging. In 2006, SVMC launched a special project to help improve end-of-life-care. That included making sure that dying patients and their families understand their options at the end of life, improving communications among everyone caring for a patient, and helping patients and families understand the benefits of hospice. To date, the project has increased the number of days patients use hospice, reduced unnecessary hospitalizations, improved pain management and increased patient and family satisfaction. Read More
General Surgery Improves Post-Op Colectomy Care
When the SVMC general surgeons learned that they were having a string of poor outcomes with their colectomy cases, they requested a comprehensive review of these cases in an effort to learn what might be going wrong. The patient safety improvement initiative that resulted is now completed. Early results show a drop in infections and length of stay for colectomy cases. However, not enough outcome data has been tabulated to be certain that these changes are real and permanent. Read More
SVMC and the Centers for Living & Rehab
Reduce Pressure Ulcers
Once considered an occasional and unfortunate by-product of hospital care, pressure ulcers are now seen as a preventable source of unnecessary harm. In 2006, SVMC worked with the Centers for Living & Rehabilitation to recognize and reduce pressure sores in the hospital. SVMC now has better protocols for preventing pressure ulcers, and fewer hospital patients go on to the Centers for Living & Rehab with an existing pressure sore. Read More
