Returned from ACHE’s Congress on March 21-25, 2010, which occurred directly after the passage of health care reform. Many of the sessions focused on how to succeed under health care reform…including one that I jointly presented with David Handley with Vancouver Coastal Health. The session was called: Canadian Healthcare Reform:
Lessons for U.S. Hospitals. Solving Patient Throughput and Improving Patient Safety.
We focused on how Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) improved patient safety and throughput in a time of increased governmental control and decreased reimbursement.
We provided a perspective of not focusing on the differences between the Canadian and U.S. systems, but how a Canadian organization adapted and succeeded under changing legislative imperatives.
David presented how VCH improved patient throughput. With occupancy rates over 100%, VCH requires quick bed turnaround times. Through a process of using call centers, patient service cards, and enhanced bed management processes in housekeeping, VCH was able to bring turnaround times down to 48 minutes, despite increased volumes and complexity of care.
David then went on to describe VCH’s focus on patient safety measures. Using a standardized visual provincial cleaning audit tool, and observational audits enhanced with technologies such as glo-germ, thoroughness of the physical cleaning practice was ensured. Staff training, standardized cleaning practices, resulted in improved predictability of results. 98% of all sites passed a quality audit score, up from 29% in 2004.
Click here to see a copy of the presentation.
