Hospital Associations Awarded for Leadership in Quality Improvement

On July 18, the American Hospital Association (AHA) announced that the Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA) and the South Carolina Hospital Association (SCHA) will receive the Dick Davidson Quality Milestone Award for Allied Association Leadership for their work to improve health care quality. This award is presented annually to state, regional or metropolitan hospital associations that demonstrate leadership and innovation in quality improvement and contribute to national health care improvement efforts. The award will be presented at the 2012 Health Forum/AHA Leadership Summit during a ceremony on July 19 in San Francisco.

“The works of these hospital associations are shining examples of what can be achieved in quality improvement,” said AHA President and CEO Rich Umbdenstock. “As leaders they inspire and enable their members to transform the care in their states. It is from leading organizations such as these that real change and improvement is made for the benefit of patients and communities.”

Through the MHA Keystone Center for Patient Safety & Quality, Michigan hospitals have maintained complex organizational change surrounding quality improvement and pioneered innovative and sustainable efforts using the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) model. Success has centered on evidence-based interventions, improvement of patient safety culture and rigorous data collection. Key successes include:

• MHA Keystone: ER, which aims to prevent harm to emergency room patients and saw a 16.5 percent decrease in the rate of patients who left without being seen.
• MHA Keystone: Obstetrics, which aims to eliminate preventable harm to mothers giving birth and their newborn babies. It helped lead to a 50 percent improvement in five-minute Apgar scores (a test to determine the health of an infant). Participating hospitals also reduced elective inductions before 39 weeks by 40 percent and reduced elective cesarean sections before 39 weeks by nearly 48 percent. These results were achieved for both MHA Keystone Center collaboratives in less than a two-year period.

SCHA has successfully reflected its mission to create a world-class health care delivery system by fostering high-quality patient care and by serving as an effective advocate for the hospital community. Its strength and success has come from collaborations that have grown to include nearly every health-related organization in the state today. These collaborative are part of a comprehensive quality portfolio focused on standardized care and statewide evidence-based improvements. Key successes include:

• A partnership with the American Heart Association on Mission: Lifeline that unified all 17 heart hospitals in the state to reduce the average state-wide treatment time for heart attack patients by 35 percent over a five-year period, below national averages and exceeding clinical guidelines.
• The Stop BSI campaign, which was inspired by Johns Hopkins and the MHA Keystone Center, achieved a 67 percent reduction in central line-associated blood stream infections over a two-year period.
• Safe Surgery 2015, for which South Carolina serves as a pilot state, with 100 percent participation from state hospitals. Although too early for results, the goals of the program are to reduce surgical infections, major complications and death through effective population-wide implementation of the World Health Organization Surgical Safety Checklist Program.

“We received an impressive group of applicants this year whose efforts highlight the important work allied associations are doing across the country,” said Scott A. Duke, CEO of Glendive Medical Center in Glendive, Mont., and AHA board member serving as chair of the Davidson Award committee. “Although the bar was set very high this year, the MHA and SCHA stood out by representing the spirit of the award with demonstrated leadership, vision and commitment to quality improvement and patient safety.”

The award is named for AHA President Emeritus Dick Davidson, who strongly promoted the role of hospital associations in leading quality improvement during his tenure as AHA president and as president of the Maryland Hospital Association. Applications are reviewed by a multi-disciplinary award committee with the AHA Board of Trustees providing final approval. The committee includes hospital association executives, hospital and health system clinical and operational leaders and a representative from a national, non-AHA organization involved in quality and performance improvement. Information on the award and how to apply is available on AHA’s website.

About the AHA
The American Hospital Association (AHA) is the national organization that represents and serves all types of hospitals, health care networks, and their patients and communities. Close to 5,000 hospitals, health care systems, networks, other providers of care and 42,000 individual members come together to form the AHA. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends.