Cooley Dickinson Presented With Patient-safety Award

NORTHAMPTON — Cooley Dickinson Hospital was awarded the 2007 Betsy Lehman Patient Safety Recognition Award at the fourth annual Betsy Lehman Patient Safety Conference in Boston.

The only Western Mass. hospital to take top honors, Cooley Dickinson was praised for implementing improvement initiatives that, over time, have eliminated hospital-associated infections such as central line bloodstream infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia.

“Full, 100{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} compliance with evidence-based best practices and zero defects are expected here,” said CDH Quality Director Donna Truesdell in reference to the hospital’s efforts to eliminate hospital-associated infections. “We are changing the culture of care at Cooley Dickinson, and the hospital’s leadership team has set the expectation that every patient will receive care that is rooted in best practices with proven outcomes.

“This is the kind of care I would want for my mother, my spouse, or my child,” she continued. “Our employees own the responsibility of improving processes to ensure that every patient we care for does not experience harm.”

Truesdell emphasized that Cooley Dickinson has not completely eliminated all hospital-associated infections. “Critical to our success has been engaging front-line staff in finding ways to implement best practices, but more importantly, setting the expectation that we will eliminate hospital-associated infections.”

A lofty goal, some might say, but one that is proving to be incrementally successful at Cooley Dickinson. Take ventilator-associated pneumonia as an example. VAP can occur in a patient whose breathing is provided mechanically for at least 48 hours through an endotracheal tube. VAP can occur when infection floods the air-filled sacs in the lungs that are responsible for absorbing oxygen.

Knowing that these infections can be caused by secretions into the lungs, Cooley’s respiratory care staff, critical care nurses, and physicians came up with the idea of using specialized endotracheal tubing that continuously suctions infectious secretions from around the endotracheal tube, thereby keeping secretions out of the lungs. The implementation of this new equipment — slightly more expensive than the cost of traditional tubing — coupled with other best-practice protocols through the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s 5 Million Lives campaign, has significantly reduced the incidence of VAP in CDH’s Critical Care Unit.

The outcomes of this initiative to prevent VAP are evident by the increasing days since the last infection, a way in which the health care industry measures the gradual elimination of infections. Most recently, CDH achieved 479 days since the last infection despite staff caring for sicker patients with more complex medical conditions and more than a 100{06cf2b9696b159f874511d23dbc893eb1ac83014175ed30550cfff22781411e5} increase in the number of ventilator days during this time period.

Similarly, Cooley Dickinson follows IHI protocols to prevent central line associated blood stream infections including documentation that requires a daily check on the need of having a central line.