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Congratulations to the winners of the ACH 2009 Quality Improvement Awards!

Emergency Center Admit Holds Project

The Emergency Center identified an opportunity to improve processes related to patients being held in the EC, awaiting inpatient beds. The EC Admit Hold Project addressed a national problem related to: EC overcrowding, fewer inpatient beds, decreased access to health care and overall continuity of care. 

The multidisciplinary team reviewed and benchmarked data related to: patients waiting for inpatient beds with limited ongoing care, variation in written orders, MD orders in various systems, varying skills and variable documentation.

As a result, this project developed new processes for MD transfer of care while the patient was physically in the EC, Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) to earlier initiation of orders and appropriate continuity of nursing care. 

The project created a multidisciplinary approach for care coordination with the inpatient team (especially our Hospitalists), IT, Pharmacy and Medical Staff.  The new process allows for improved continuity of care for patients as the plan of care is initiated early, improved parent and patient satisfaction and ongoing care by nursing.

Breast Milk Patient Identification Project 

Organizationally and nationally, the importance of improving safe and reliable practices for breast milk administration is a high priority.  These processes are high risk, problem prone, and high volume (ACH NICU & CVICU administers approximately 8,700 doses of breast milk per month).
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The Breast Milk Taskforce Steering Committee provided oversight for this multi-faceted project charged with improving patient identification in processes related to breast milk storage, handling, and administration and inventory management.

This improvement project provided an opportunity to introduce the first phase of patient identification - bar coding technology (LacTrack) for ACH. The improvement focused on implementing new and improved breast milk related processes for the NICU and CVICU as 95% of Breast Milk is administered on these units. This redesign will impact the way breast milk and patient identification is managed at ACH for generations to come. 

As a result, greater than 70 new/improved process flows were developed, tested and implemented in NICU 3 and for use in the new hospital to introduce bar coding technology, changes in milk location, centralized storage and preparation areas, delivery processes, etc.

The project also created and implemented Milk Depot and Milk Preparation areas with dedicated staff to reduce variation and potential errors in milk preparation and storage. This change in practice has now been piloted in NICU 3.

Bar coding technology to provide feed labels to accurately identify breast milk being collected and delivered was also implemented.

Other Programs/Projects receiving honorable mention included: The NICU Early Feeding Protocol and the Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE) Implementation.

More photos of the awards presentation >>