Andalusia Regional Hospital Honored with Modern Healthcare’s Spirit of Excellence Award
December 13, 2011
Andalusia Regional Hospital is a 2011 recipient of Modern Healthcare’s prestigious Spirit of Excellence Award in Patient Safety. The national award, presented by the healthcare industry’s leading source of healthcare news and information, recognizes strategies and procedures that improve the safety of care for patients. Andalusia Regional Hospital was lauded for its efforts to minimize hospital-associated infections (HAIs) via a focused – and measured – hand hygiene program. The hospital was one of nearly 150 hospitals nominated for Spirit of Excellence awards this year, and one of only 10 award recipients named.
“At Andalusia Regional Hospital, we understand that innovation is essential in developing new programs that improve patient safety,” said Mark Dooley, chief executive officer at Andalusia Regional Hospital. “Recently, our team took a step back to look at the major global causes of patient safety issues and decided to tackle one that plagues many healthcare facilities: hospital-associated infections. We did this by piloting a program that reinforces the importance of hand hygiene; reminds clinical staff to frequently and properly wash their hands; and monitors compliance with best practice standards. The results have been profound.”
Andalusia Regional Hospital’s program utilizes the Proventix system NGage – a technology that uses personal monitoring devices to record when healthcare workers enter a patient’s room, measure hand hygiene behaviors, and electronically report compliance rates. Within a few short months of launching the program in one unit, the hospital reduced the number of confirmed HAIs, decreased the HAI rate per admission, and reduced the average incremental length of stay by 48.4 days. These remarkable improvements also translated into more than $42,600 in direct cost savings for the hospital.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 100,000 Americans die each year as a result of infections contracted in hospitals and other health care facilities. About one in 20 people hospitalized will get a health care-acquired infection, and one of the best ways to prevent such infections is to make sure doctors, nurses and others frequently wash their hands.
“Our program not only heightened awareness of the importance of hand hygiene among doctors and nurses, but also among patients, their families and other hospital visitors,” Dooley said. “Our collective efforts are saving lives.”
