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IHI launches campaign to save 100,000 lives

Quality Improvement Monitor, December 16, 2004

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) announced Tuesday that it is launching a campaign to save 100,000 lives in U.S. hospitals in the next 18 months through six quality improvement steps.

IHI's "100,000 Lives" campaign aims to enlist at least 1,600 American hospitals-the number needed to save at least 100,000 lives-free of charge to implement changes that will save lives and reduce errors. Those changes include

  • Deploying rapid response teams to allow any staff member to call a special team to examine a patient at the first sign of deterioration
  • Delivering evidence-based care for heart attacks through consistently delivering key measures, including early administration of aspirin and beta blockers, that prevent deaths
  • Preventing adverse drug events through medication reconciliation at admission, discharge, and transfer
  • Preventing central line infections by delivering five steps known as the central line bundle, which includes hand washing
  • Preventing surgical site infections by delivering the correct perioperative antibiotics, maintaining glucose levels, and avoiding shaving hair at the surgical site
  • Preventing ventilator-associated pnuemonia by implementing five steps, including elevating the head of the hospital bed 30 degrees

Several of the steps overlap with JCAHO core measures and CMS quality measures, allowing hospitals to extend the work they are already doing to the "100,000 Lives" campaign, said JCAHO President Dennis O'Leary.

"No one is big enough to do it alone," O'Leary said.

IHI will provide hospitals with best practices and contact information for hospitals that implement the six steps effectively, said IHI President Donald Berwick. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has already donated a $3 million grant to the campaign, $2.5 million of which will help Massachusetts hospitals, and Kaiser Permanente donated an $8 million grant.

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