Quality Improvements

JCAHO Accreditation
OSF Saint Anthony a Quality Leader
Patient Satisfaction and Service Quality
Quality Reports
Saving Five Million Lives Campaign

OSF Saint Anthony Leads National Effort To Save 5 Million Lives
OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center has joined the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s 5 Million Lives Campaign, the first-ever national campaign to save 5 Million lives by implementing proven healthcare improvement techniques.

The campaign has been endorsed by such distinguished healthcare organizations as the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. A theme, "Some is not a number and soon is not a time," was established to give the campaign definite numeric and time frame goals.

"OSF Saint Anthony is a full participant in the IHI's Saving 5 Million Lives campaign because it is the right thing to do," said Eric Benink, MD, assistant administrator for medical services at OSF Saint Anthony. "It is the right thing to do for our patients, our staff members and the communities we serve. We are dedicated to providing consistent, high quality care. We have programs in place that address the six recommendations made by the IHI campaign (listed below). However, we are continually seeking ways to raise the bar and improve care."

OSF Saint Anthony is one of the five medical centers in the United States that worked with the IHI to shape the Campaign’s six recommendations for improving patient care. Those six recommendations are:

Deploy Rapid Response Teams—by allowing any staff member, regardless of position in the chain of command, to call upon a specialty team to examine a patient at the first sign of decline instead of waiting for a code situation.

For the past few years, OSF Saint Anthony has had in place its Medical Emergency Team (MET). The team, which is available 24 hours a day, is composed of a registered nurse from each of the medical center's two critical care units and a respiratory therapist. The MET is currently averaging one call per day.

Deliver Reliable Evidence-Based Care for Acute Myocardial Infarction (heart attack)—by consistently delivering key measures - including early administration of aspirin and beta-blockers – that prevent patient deaths from heart attack.

OSF Saint Anthony is the first medical center in Rockford to earn accreditation as a Chest Pain Center. As a result, OSF Saint Anthony currently meets or exceeds national averages in delivering these medications to patients. Data is available on the Quality Improvements main page of this website.

Prevent Adverse Drug Events—by implementing medication reconciliation, which requires that a list of all of a patient’s medications (even for unrelated illnesses) be compiled and reconciled to ensure that the patient is given (or prescribed) the right medications at the correct dosages—at admission, discharge and before transferring to another care unit.

For the past three years, OSF Saint Anthony has been reconciling patient medications upon admission and when transferring to a new unit and at discharge. Work is continuing on the implementation of a direct order system that will further increase the reliability of medication systems at the medical center.

Prevent Central Line Infections—by consistently delivering five interdependent, scientifically grounded steps collectively called the “Central Line Bundle.”

OSF Saint Anthony is in the development phase of enhancing our program to prevent these infections. The medical center's central line infection rate has been low and some measures are in place but work to standardize these efforts is continuing.

Prevent Surgical Site Infections—by reliably delivering the correct antibiotics before, during and after surgery, as well as maintaining glucose levels and avoiding shaving hair at the surgical site.

At OSF Saint Anthony, improvement in this area is well documented. The delivery of an appropriate antibiotic within one hour prior to hip and knee replacement surgeries improved from 22 percent to 90 percent. For heart surgery patients, the rate has been 100 percent. In addition, hair at the surgical site is clipped, not shaved, and recent work has developed a method to closely monitor glucose levels around the time of surgery.

Prevent Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia—by implementing five interdependent, scientifically grounded steps collectively called the “Ventilator Bundle” – such as elevating the head of the hospital bed by 30 degrees – thereby dramatically reducing mortality and length of stay in the Intensive Care Unit.

A multi-disciplinary team is in place at OSF Saint Anthony to monitor delivery of these interventions. OSF Saint Anthony Medical Center ventilator associated pneumonia rate has consistently been very low.

"We are organizing a world-class campaign to elect quality,” said Dr. Donald Berwick, President and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). “The health care organizations that join this campaign are not only demonstrating their commitment to improvement but their determination to put proven, life-saving improvement techniques into action.”

To learn more about the 5 Million Lives Campaign, go to www.ihi.org/ihi/programs/campaign.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is a not-for-profit organization leading the improvement of health care throughout the world. Founded in 1991 and based in Cambridge, MA, IHI is a catalyst for change, cultivating innovative concepts for improving patient care and implementing programs for putting those ideas into action. Thousands of health care providers, including many of the finest hospitals in the world, participate in IHI’s groundbreaking work.