Message from the Executive Director

This issue of the SNI Bulletin marks tremendous successes and achievements for California’s public hospitals as they blaze the trail for innovation at every level – from pioneering individuals and programs to remarkable systems. I invite you to enjoy this glimpse into the breadth and depth of public hospitals’ transformation work, and learn how these systems are making a real difference for their patients.

Wendy Signature

Palliative Care in California’s Public Hospitals – Now at 100% Participation – Featured in National Peer-Reviewed Journal

The special safety net issue of the Journal of Healthcare Quality (JHQ) will feature the article, A Multi-Faceted Approach to Spreading Palliative Care Consultation Services in California Public Hospital Systems. The article describes our Spreading Palliative Care in Public Hospitals (SPCPH) program, and is co-authored by the SPCPH project team, including: SNI, CAPH, UCSF’s Palliative Care Leadership Center, Learning Partnerships, and the California Healthcare Foundation, which provided funding for the program. What’s more, every public hospital in California – 100% – will provide palliative care services in their institutions this year, significantly higher than national average of 63%. The National Association of Public Hospitals (NAPH) also presented this achievement at a joint press release event with JHQ yesterday, and will publish an entry by one of the article’s authors on the NAPH blog in the near future. To read the abstract and access the article, click here.

Contact: Boris Kalanj

SNI Launches its Latest Medical Home Collaborative

As part of SNI’s work on Building Medical Homes, the next outpatient improvement collaborative will be launching this month with seven clinic teams from San Joaquin General Hospital, Riverside County Regional Medical Center, and Arrowhead Regional Medical Center. SNI plans to work with clinics from additional CAPH member public hospital systems in a second wave of the project starting in the Fall. The Medical Home Collaborative will help safety net primary care clinics become high performing medical homes, with a particular focus on improving chronic illness care for diabetes patients. Using the Model for Improvement and the Chronic Care Model as roadmaps, SNI will provide the support and coaching to help clinic teams measurably improve care for their patients.

Contact: Denise Gonzalez, M.D. or Sasha Morduchowicz

Primary Care Workgroup on Care Team Optimization Kicks-Off

SNI is pleased to announce that its third annual Primary Care Workgroup, focusing on Care Team Optimization, kicked-off this week with a March 14 webinar. Starting in 2010, SNI has convened two other workgroups, Building QI Capacity in Residency-Based Clinics and Empanelment, which have provided opportunities for CAPH ambulatory care leaders to come together and advance their work on common areas of interest. The new Care Team Optimization workgroup will focus on methods for effectively building strong clinical teams, and will convene through monthly webinars and an in-person closing event throughout the year.

Contact: Nermeen Iskander

Pioneering Efforts to Improve Patient Experience: SNI’s Patient Experience Transformation (PExT) Action Collaborative

Since October 2011, SNI’s PExT Action Collaborative has been helping 10 public hospital systems achieve measurable advances in the patient and caregiver experience, in partnership with ExperiaHealth. These teams have been hard at work to develop a quality improvement process trajectory that includes: intelligence gathering, identifying key experience gaps and designing improvement via “quick wins” and “always events.” Implementation of these improvements is being carried out in all types of health care settings, including medical/surgical units, urgent care centers, birthing centers and a variety of outpatient clinics. The work of the PExT Action Collaborative, which will conclude in June, represents a pioneering effort by California public hospital systems to advance patient and family centered care through quality improvement methodology adapted for use within the context of the patient and caregiver experience.

Contact: Boris Kalanj

Sepsis/CLABSI Collaborative in Midst of Helping Reduce Infection Rates

SNI hosted the second learning session for its Sepsis and CLABSI Collaborative on February 15 in Burbank, with funding from the Blue Shield of California Foundation. More than 40 CAPH-member participants learned from expert Dr. Sean Townsend, and each other, regarding effective methods for reducing Sepsis and CLABSI rates. Teams formed a meaningful learning network, as they reflected on their reported data and shared challenges and best practices with one another. Improvement advisors Joan Grebe and Julie Kliger, RN also offered participants tools to run small tests of change and spread quality improvement methods throughout their systems. The next learning session will be held on August 15 in Northern California.

Contact: Seraphin Nicholson

CAPH Member Becomes the First Kaiser Permanente (KP) Safety Net Fellow at IHI

Margo Maida, Director of Delivery System Reform for Santa Clara Valley Health & Hospital System, will begin her one-year fellowship in July 2012, becoming the first Kaiser Permanente-sponsored Safety Net Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). Through guidance from current SNI Board Chair and 2007/2008 IHI Fellow, Anna Roth, former SNI Board member, Dr. Winston Wong, and IHI Senior Vice President Dr. Don Goldmann, KP developed the safety net sponsorship to provide opportunity for an emerging safety net leader to participate in IHI’s acclaimed Fellowship Program.

Major Participation from California Public Hospitals in Kaiser Permanente’s Performance Improvement Program

The Kaiser Permanente (KP) National Performance Improvement (PI) department has announced its sixth wave of Improvement Institute programs, with trainings led by world-renowned experts to help advance both PI strategy and day-to-day improvement. SNI is pleased to share that the majority of participants for these trainings are from California public hospitals. Congratulations to Holly Garcia from Alameda County Medical Center, Jennifer Coffey from San Francisco General Hospital, Amy Petersen, from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, Rick Rutherford and Rose M. Egertson, from Ventura County Medical Center, Shawn Phipps from Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, and Jacey Cooper from Kern Medical Center for acceptance into The Improvement Institute program. The Performance Improvement Leadership Program welcomes Shawn Phipps from Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Ruth Bala and Christina Tickner from the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, Lisa Golden from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, Sue Schwartz from San Francisco General Hospital, and Isabel Milan from LAC+USC Medical Center.

Contact: Norma Batongbacal

CAPH Members in the Spotlight as Top Clinical Informaticist and IHI’s Open School

Howard Landa, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer at Alameda County Medical Center, was named one of Modern Healthcare’s Top 25 Clinical Informaticists for 2011. Dr. Landa has demonstrated proven leadership in accelerating effective implementation electronic health record system rollout. Also, Gilbert Salinas, Director of Patient-Centered Care at Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, was recently featured on IHI’s Open School webpage to provide insights from a positive patient story.

Events

April 16: Cynosure’s New Project Management for Clinicians from 9 a.m.-3:30p.m. at the California Endowment in Oakland. Register here.

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