Minnesota Hospital Association

Newsroom

October 14, 2013

MHA Newsline

In this issue

Hospital spotlight: Hospitals in MHA’s HEN making progress toward goals

The 112 hospitals in MHA’s Hospital Engagement Network are making good progress toward the goals of reducing hospital acquired conditions by 40 percent and reducing readmissions by 20 percent. In particular, significant progress has been made to reduce pressure ulcers and early elective deliveries. In fact, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently gave Minnesota kudos for its work on pressure ulcers and cited that the state is far below the national average for its pressure ulcer rate. Learn more about Minnesota hospitals’ patient safety and quality improvement efforts.  

HEN Safety Improvement Graph 

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Minnesota hospitals chosen to further expand patient safety and quality efforts

The MHA Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) has been awarded $4.5 million from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to further expand its work to enhance patient safety.  The award was effective Sept. 26, 2013.

The MHA Hospital Engagement Network competed successfully as a hospital engagement network in the federal Partnership for Patients program to be chosen for this work.  

The MHA HEN is one of six hospital engagement networks across the country to be selected for this program. The Leading Edge Advanced Practice Topics (LEAPT) funding will allow Minnesota hospitals to create tested strategies to measure and improve outcomes for patients. Specifically, hospitals will develop and share with hospitals nationally significant advances in the following areas:

  • Severe sepsis (a rapid onset of organ dysfunction caused by an overwhelming immune response to infection) and septic shock (a form of severe sepsis accompanied by a life-threatening decrease in blood pressure).
  • Clostridium difficile (C.diff), a bacterial infection that can be acquired during hospitalization and after treatment of an unrelated infection with antibiotics. C.diff infection leads to a wide range of symptoms from diarrhea to life-threatening colon inflammation, and primarily occurs in older adults in hospitals.
  • Iatrogenic delirium, a rapid decline in cognitive function, which results in temporary, but severe confusion and disorientation as a result of medical treatment.
  • Creating a hospital culture of safety that fully integrates patient and worker safety.
  • Expanding the reduction of hospital acquired conditions and readmissions across the health care community, including: collaborating with long-term care, clinics, the community and others to prevent falls and falls with injury across all settings; improving transitions of care through comprehensive medication therapy management; engaging medical school residents in meaningful quality improvement and patient safety efforts; and engaging patients as partners in the prevention of harm. 

To view the full press release, including a list of hospitals selected to participate, visit our Newsroom. return to top

MAPS/MDH assess 10 years of Adverse Health Event reporting

Hospitals, surgery centers, long-term care organizations and others came together last week to examine Minnesota’s adverse health event reporting system, where it’s come in the past 10 years and where it should go in the future. The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is in the midst of a 10-year evaluation of the reporting system, which has included a survey of reporting facilities, data analysis and in-depth focus groups across the state.  

Lawrence Massa, MHA president and CEO, told attendees that the adverse event reporting system was a catalyst for an increased focus on patient safety and that it has become the foundation on which we’re able to have transparent conversations around keeping patients safe. He also said it was important to stay the course and continue with Minnesota’s nation-leading reporting system as opposed to significantly altering it.  

Themes that emerged during a facilitated discussion of the future of adverse health events reporting in Minnesota is the need to break down silos within organizations and put the patient as the driver—further developing patient-centered care. Participants also felt it was important to continue to improve the system of sharing so organizations can learn from reported events. Several participants expressed concern with the system being one focused on punishment rather than learning and improvement. Finally, participants said it was critical that we build a culture of safety into physician and nurse leader training programs so that safe practices become embedded into the culture of organizations. return to top  

Trustee regional meetings scheduled for October and November

In October and November, MHA will offer a series of regional trustee meetings at locations throughout the state. These regional meetings will feature a presentation by Ben Peltier, MHA’s vice president of legal services, focusing on federal policy affecting Minnesota health care providers.  

Ben’s presentation and discussion will break down implementation of the Affordable Care Act, federal budget crisis, and the actions of Congress, the federal courts, and various agencies throughout the Department of Health and Human Services — including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Office of the Inspector General (OIG) — all affecting how health care is delivered and paid for.  

The meetings will take place:

  • Tuesday, Oct. 22 — Fairview Ridges Hospital, Burnsville
  • Tuesday, Oct. 29 — Douglas County Hospital, Alexandria
  • Wednesday, Oct. 30 — District One Hospital, Faribault
  • Wednesday, Nov. 6 — St. Joseph’s Area Health Services, Park Rapids
  • Thursday, Nov. 7 — St. Luke’s Hospital, Duluth

Trustees working toward MHA Board education certification will earn 1.0 credit hour under the effective governance (EG) component. Click here for more information and a registration form. return to top  

Community benefit survey issued to members

MHA requests hospitals to submit data by Friday, Nov. 1 MHA has initiated the community benefit data collection for fiscal year 2012. The data is presented in MHA’s annual Community Benefit Report, which quantifies the contributions hospitals make to improve the health of their communities as well as to ensure access to care.  

For systems that have multiple facilities in different geographic regions of the state, please provide site-specific details so data can be parsed in our statewide report by region. 

If all of your facilities are in one geographic region, you may report consolidated figures. We understand that you may file only one 990 Schedule H for your system; however, for community benefits reporting it is vital we are able to aggregate by region.  

Chief executive officers, chief financial officers and communications point people should have received emails with instructions and a link to the survey system used to collect the data. Participation by all member hospitals is requested; the more hospitals that participate, the more representative and accurate the final report will be. The deadline for submitting data is Friday, Nov. 1.   

If your hospital did not receive emails regarding the survey, please contact Bonnie Terveer, MHA data operations assistant, 651-641-1121. return to top  

International Infection Prevention Week highlights that clean hands save lives

Celebrate your efforts to reduce infection Oct. 20-26
Next week is International Infection Prevention Week (IIPW), drawing attention to the fact that infection prevention is everyone’s job, and everyone in a hospital plays a role in keeping patients safe from infection. The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) offers a number of resources and videos on outbreaks, hand hygiene, and protecting patients on its website. There are also resources to help you promote International Infection Prevention Week including a sample newsletter article, press release and social media posts. return to top

Webinar: Creating and maintaining a culture of donation excellence through leadership

The American Hospital Association, the American College of Healthcare Executives and the Organ Donation and Transplantation Alliance will host a one-hour webinar on Monday, Oct. 28 from 3-4 p.m. CT. The webinar is designed for CEOs of hospitals; state/regional/metropolitan hospital associations; and organ procurement organizations. Participants will:

  • Learn how executive leadership of hospitals, state hospital associations, organ procurement organizations and transplant centers work together to save lives;
  • Learn how effective partnerships build and support an effective organ donation process; and
  • Find new ways to create and maintain a culture of donation and effective donation systems.

There is no charge for the webinar but registration is required. To register, click here. return to top

Does your hospital offer job shadowing opportunities?

Job shadowing is an important way that students gain interest in health care careers. MHA is updating the list of hospitals that offer job shadowing opportunities.  

Please review our list and let us know if anything has changed regarding your job shadow program. If your hospital offers job shadowing and is not listed, please send the following information to Nathalie Squire, [email protected], MHA workforce project manager, by Friday, Nov. 1:

  • Contact Person
  • Title
  • Department
  • Email Address
  • Phone
  • Facility website (or direct link to information on job shadowing)

Please respond even if nothing has changed to let Nathalie know that the information is still correct. return to top