NJHA Debuts 'Excellence in Quality Improvement' Awards

PRINCETON, N.J., Jan. 19, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The New Jersey Hospital Association presented two outstanding programs with its first-ever Excellence in Quality Improvement Awards Jan. 14. The new awards are designed to celebrate healthcare organizations' tremendous advances in quality improvement and patient safety.

NJHA, through its Institute for Quality and Patient Safety, partners with healthcare providers across the state in intensive collaborative efforts to make healthcare better, safer and more efficient for the residents of New Jersey. The state's annual Hospital Performance Report, released last week by the Department of Health and Senior Services, shows that the state's hospitals have shown continued "dramatic improvement" in healthcare quality.

NJHA's Excellence in Quality Improvement Awards recognize the work of both acute care hospitals and continuing care providers. The acute care award was presented to Saint Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston for its program, Establishing a Family Advisory Council Helps Pave the Road for a More Family-Centered Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

This program sought valuable input directly from the families it serves in one of the most emotionally charged units of the hospital – the neonatal intensive care unit. Through development of a Family Advisory Council, Saint Barnabas Medical Center gathered family members' opinions, experiences and suggestions and used them to transform its NICU from a clinically focused department to a family-centered unit. The advisory council's guidance led to the development of several resources, including a NICU Parent Handbook, a Parent-to-Parent Support Group, a Parent Mentor/Buddy Program, a NICU Orientation video and staff training in family-centered care. The result? A unit that provides the best in clinical – and emotional – care.

The Excellence in Quality Improvement Award for a program at a post-acute care organization was presented to Meridian Home Care of Monmouth County for its Ocean Medical Center Chronic Heart Failure Pilot Project, which provides a comprehensive approach to keeping chronic heart failure (CHF) patients on the road to recovery and preventing their readmission to the hospital.

This program offers individualized education, follow-up and support for its patients with CHF, with a goal toward preserving their independence and giving them the tools they need to successfully manage their illness. The program helps patients not only manage their conditions, but also to identify signs and symptoms of a worsening condition. Through careful attention to patients' home-care discharge instructions and a standardized process for patient follow-up, the program has been highly successful in keeping individuals in their homes, with the percentage of patients readmitted to the hospital falling from 14.93 percent to just 4.84 percent in less than eight months.

"Quality improvement has become an ingrained part of our healthcare culture, and programs like these show the commitment and innovation that drives that improvement," said NJHA President and CEO Betsy Ryan. "Congratulations to our honorees and to all New Jersey's hospitals and continuing care providers who are seeing their hard work yield results. But even more important is the good news it brings to New Jersey patients."

The New Jersey Hospital Association, based in Princeton, is the statewide advocate for its 110 member hospitals, its 300-plus post-acute members and the patients they serve.

SOURCE New Jersey Hospital Association