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What makes the best hospital?

Hospitalist Leadership Connection, July 22, 2008

U.S. News & World Report this month profiled one of the nation’s top hospitals, Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, who was awarded the superlative for heart care among the “America’s Best Hospitals.” Among the best practices in place at this Honor Roll facility are the following strategies:

• Go green. The hospital uses electronic records for patients to color code ICU measures, which helped reduce ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) incidence rates. Patients can also access their lab results electronically available through the hospital’s online health system.
• Make handoffs effective. To reduce the risk of charts being misread, multiple nurses say out loud out what the patient’s status is and what the next steps for care are.
• Give voice to patient transfer. A critical care nurse takes incoming calls from doctors who want to transfer their heart patients to Vanderbilt. This use of effective human communication replaces calls put on hold or missed voicemail messages.
• X marks the spot. The hospital uses black marker to write the doctor’s initials on the patient prior to operation, indicating which side of the body requires surgery. This prevents wrong-side surgeries.

Teamwork works. Surgeons and catheter specialists have the option to work together, unlike some hospitals that separate the two specialists by different floors or buildings.

Read the full article here.

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