The Quality Institute of the Ohio Hospital Association and the Hospital Council of Northwest Ohio have launched the Northwest Ohio Hospital Quality Collaborative, designed to bring together hospital administrators, physicians and other clinicians to share best practices to improve patient safety and outcomes.
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“Communication is the keystone of patient safety,” said Patrick Martin, president and chief executive officer of Fisher-Titus Medical Center in Norwalk and board chairman of the HCNO, in a statement. “The Northwest Ohio Hospital Quality Collaborative gives our region’s hospitals a new mechanism to communicate about the most important mission of any hospital – keeping our patients safe.”
The NOHQC joins four regional quality collaboratives already under way in Dayton, Cincinnati and central and northeast Ohio. All are under the auspices of the Quality Institute of the OHA. Twenty-eight hospitals have signed on so far and others may sign up in the coming weeks.
Each quality collaborative focuses on one of four statewide quality goals: reduce infections, reduce readmissions, reduce adverse events and increase patient satisfaction. The NOHQC has not yet chosen which goal on which to focus.
Some of the accomplishments of the regional quality collaboratives include:
- A 36 percent reduction in heart attack mortality over three years in greater Dayton, saving an estimated 52 lives;
- A 42 percent reduction in heart attack mortality in central Ohio, saving an estimated 150 lives;
- A 93 percent improvement in heart attack performance (a measure indicating how many patients get all of the care appropriate for their condition) in greater Cincinnati; and
- A nearly 20 percent improvement in pneumonia care performance in northeast Ohio.