Sepsis/CLABSI Collaborative Sees 38% Reduction in Infections

SNI’s 2-year Sepsis and CLABSI Collaborative, funded by the Blue Shield of California Foundation, supports California’s public hospitals in their efforts to decrease central line blood stream infections and reduce infections and associated morbidity and mortality from sepsis. The Collaborative began in September 2011 and public hospitals have already made notable improvements. By April 2012, 16 participating hospitals collectively achieved a 38% reduction in central line blood stream infections. The Sepsis and CLABSI Collaborative, in partnership with Cynosure Health, is hosting its third learning session on August 15th and will feature sepsis and CLABSI expert speakers. More information about the event is available on the SNI website.

Contact: Rosemary Phu

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PExT Teams Show Improvement in Patient Satisfaction; Programming Continues through December 2012

SNI’s Patient Experience Transformation (PExT) Action Collaborative, facilitated in partnership with ExperiaHealth, is showing promising results at the midpoint of the program, with several of the 10 teams already showing measurable improvement. Notably, San Joaquin General Hospital has shown 24% increase in the “Excellent” rating for the “Likelihood to Recommend” care on their patient satisfaction survey in the Family Maternity Center. Similarly, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center has reported a 29.4 percentile increase within the national benchmark on the same measure, and was selected to share their mid-point results at the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (NAPH) Annual Conference on June 21st as part of The Power of Patient Engagement panel session. The PExT Learning Community and the CG-CAHPS Implementation Network will continue through 2012. There will also be a new component called the Leadership Series, which is a three-month intensive training program designed to strengthen the skills of select participants from the Action Collaborative to lead future experience improvement events in their organizations.

Contact: Boris Kalanj

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SNI’s Boris Kalanj Featured in Statewide and National Internet Forums

SNI Senior Program Associate, Boris Kalanj, contributed to California Healthline’s recent Think Tank forum, which asked leaders in the state to provide their thoughts on how California's health care system can best prepare for an increasingly diverse population, in light of the most recent U.S. Census Bureau’s findings that non-white infants now composed the majority of births. Boris’ piece in the Think Tank focused on the importance of meaningful REaL Data. The full article, titled Start With Meaningful Data on Race, Ethnicity, Language can be found on the California Healthline website.

Leading up to the NAPH Annual Conference last month, Boris also contributed a post on June 18th for the NAPH blog, highlighting the work of California public hospital systems to engage patients in their work, particularly through the PExT Action Collaborative. PExT’s partner organization, ExperiaHealth contributed a post to the NAPH blog as well, further exemplifying the benefits of patient engagement in care.

Contact: Boris Kalanj

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2012 CAPH/SNI Quality Leaders Awards- Application Now Available

Over the last two decades, the CAPH/SNI Quality Leaders Awards program (QLAs) has honored hundreds of impressive health care improvements among California’s public hospitals. Awarded annually at the CAPH Annual Conference, and funded by Kaiser Permanente, the QLA’s not only highlight forward-thinking improvements taking place among the CAPH membership, but also the leadership, innovation and commitment of those working in the public safety net. As California’s public hospitals continue to transform their delivery systems into high value, integrated systems of care, and give recent Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, there’s never been a more important time to share and highlight the achievements represented by the Quality Leaders Awards. CAPH and SNI have just released the application for the 2012 QLAs, along with the Clinical Learning Award application, both of which are available on the SNI website. The deadline to submit entries is Monday, September 17th.

Contact: Nermeen Iskander

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CA 1115 Medicaid Waiver’s Incentive Program Improves Delivery System Infrastructure

All of California’s public hospitals have taken on substantial, multiple and simultaneous initiatives aimed at improving their health care delivery systems as part of the California 1115 Medicaid Waiver’s Incentive Program (DSRIP). As DSRIP nears its mid-point, public hospital systems have built robust systems and infrastructure improvements that will have enormous payoff for patients. One such example is San Joaquin General Hospital’s opening of the Office of Panel Management and Specialty Referrals, designed to enhance their capacity to improve population health. Another example, in Los Angeles County, is the empanelment of all patients enrolled in the Low Income Health Program into patient-centered medical homes. These and other system-level improvements put public hospitals on the path to health reform, recently upheld by the Supreme Court. SNI looks forward to continuing our partnership with public hospitals as they continue to transform their systems.

Contact: Nermeen Iskander

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Palliative Care Programs in California Public Hospitals Going Strong

SNI and partners at the California HealthCare Foundation and University of California San Francisco have had great success in promoting the spread of palliative care services in public hospitals, which has resulted in 94% of California public hospitals currently able to offer palliative care services to their patients, on the way to the 100% by the end of this year. This compares to only 53% of the overall hospitals in California that have palliative care programs in place. These numbers translate into some 4,000 racially/ethnically diverse patients benefitting from palliative care in public hospitals per year, 40% of whom have a primary language other than English. Going forward, SNI will focus on boosting the skills and efficacy of the teams to work with such diverse populations by providing cultural competence trainings for the multidisciplinary team members and a professional support network for palliative care interpreters. SNI will be taking on the overall coordination of the palliative care initiative in 2013.

Contact: Boris Kalanj

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California Public Hospitals Receive Praise for Protecting LGBT Patient & Staff Rights

San Francisco General Hospital, UC Davis Medical Center, and UC San Diego Health System, have recently been honored for protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) patients and employees from discrimination by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. These institutions were among 71 nationwide that had the highest levels of support for LGBT employees, according to the foundation’s annual Healthcare Equality Index. Read the entire article here.

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