The beauty of the 100,000 Lives Campaign interventions, says Ben Chaska, MD, MBA, CPE, is how adaptable they are to different settings. Chaska serves as Medical Director and Patient Safety Officer at St. Peter Community Hospital in St. Peter, Minnesota. Located about an hour from the Twin Cities, St. Peter is a 17-bed critical access hospital that has so successfully implemented five of the six Campaign interventions that they were designated a Campaign Mentor Hospital. (Since they have no ventilator patients, that particular intervention does not apply.)
The hospital might be described as small but mighty. Chaska says there was early and unanimous agreement to implement the Campaign interventions. “We are aggressive about quality,” he says. “After I did some presentations about IHI’s Campaign, physicians didn’t just support the initiative, they demanded we do it.”
That attitude pervades the hospital and undoubtedly explains their outstanding results. Says Chaska, “We reduced surgical site infections by 50 percent. We increased medication reconciliation from 70 percent to between 95 percent and 100 percent. We decreased transfers to higher levels of care by 28 percent.”
Chaska says the results are a great source of pride for the staff. “This stuff is so powerful, and has a real impact on morbidity and mortality. It cost us nothing, and the benefits are huge, especially for our patients.”
02/05/2007
