ICU receives VHA excellence award
Intensive care units at Community Regional Medical Center and University Medical Center launched a program in September 2005 to significantly redesign patient care. The effort to reduce infections, complications, death and costs has resulted in recognition by VHA Inc., a national health care alliance serving more than 2,400 health care organizations nationwide.
The VHA Transformation of the ICU Award for Clinical Excellence honored 26 hospitals nationwide this year that have distinguished themselves by meeting or exceeding national performance standards in specific clinical categories. UMC critical care services and staff moved to Community Regional in mid-April and were recognized along with and as a part of Community Regional’s ICU team.
Kevin Barcelos, Community Regional staff nurse in charge of the transformation project, said it was all about taking simple steps and consistently monitoring to make sure everybody follows best practices all the time. The ICU staff evaluated infection rates and worked on areas that needed improvement, educated staff and patients’ families about preventing infection and implemented some changes in caring for ventilator patients.
“So much of it is extremely basic – nothing that is rocket science,” Barcelos told Infection Control Today magazine recently. The May 2007 edition of the magazine highlighted Community Regional’s 30% reduction last year in ventilator-associated pneumonia.
Barcelos said Community’s critical care staff has been learning what worked at other VHA member hospitals across the country. Sometimes it was as simple as making sure ventilator patients’ heads are elevated exactly 30 degrees, not more and not less. By merely improving care of patients on ventilators a hospital – such as Community Regional – with 1,000 or more annual ICU admissions saves an average of 47 lives and $3 million, according to VHA data.
While simple steps mean a world of difference for critically ill patients and return them home faster, it also helps hospitals stay in business. Critical care costs are second only to surgery costs for U.S. hospitals and consume $180 billion annually, or about 30% of most acute care hospital budgets. And the vast majority of those ICU patients are on Medicare/Medicaid, which doesn’t cover the full costs of caring for many of those critical patients.
Jack Chubb, Community Regional chief executive officer, told employees during a May 22 forum: “We’re one of the only Valley hospitals with in-house intensivists available 24/7. …We’re a very special place.”
To receive the VHA award for excellence, Community Regional had to demonstrate its ICU applied specific processes to screen, identify, treat and reduce the risk for sepsis, or infection, in the ICU.
"At the heart of the covenant between patients and hospitals lies the belief that clinical excellence is paramount," said Dr. Trent Haywood, chief medical officer at VHA. "Fresno’s Community Regional Medical Center is a shining example of what can be achieved when a hospital's actions are guided by the pursuit of clinical excellence."
This story was reported by Erin Kennedy. She can be reached at ekennedy@communitymedical.org.