SNI Bulletin SNI
December 20, 2012
In this SNI Bulletin:
Message from the Executive Director
Announcing the 2012 CAPH/SNI Quality Leaders Awards Winners
Highlights from the 2012 CAPH/SNI Annual Conference
Public Hospital Systems Improve the Patient Experience through SNI’s Patient Experience Transformation (PExT) Initiative
Palliative Care Programs Actively Serving Patients in 100% of California Public Hospitals
Public Hospitals Improve Patient Care and Reduce Infections
EHR Adoption Spreads throughout California
Public Hospital Systems Recognized for Providing Outstanding Patient Care and Customer Service
Prevention: New Incentive Available for Medi-Cal Patients Who Want to Quit Smoking

Message from the Executive Director

Dear Colleagues,

The theme of our annual conference this year, “Envisioning Tomorrow: Value and Quality in a Changing Landscape,” has had personal relevance for me as I transition out of my position as Executive Director of SNI. I am leaving after nearly 18 dynamic and exciting years at CAPH, including the last 13 years in which I had the opportunity to create and grow SNI, and most recently led SNI through a major expansion in which we doubled our staff, and took our programs and initiatives in new directions to support California’s public hospital delivery system transformation. I feel proud of all that we have accomplished together, with notable highlights from 2012 described in this Bulletin. I am clear that this is the right time for me to “envision (my own) tomorrow… in a changing landscape.” I am especially pleased to leave SNI in good hands, as Nancy Oswald, PhD, former CEO of Redwood Community Health Coalition, has stepped in as Interim Director.

I have felt privileged to work with so many of you over the years, and it has been my deepest honor to have helped strengthen the sacred role of California public hospital systems where, every day, dedicated staff, clinicians and administrators make a difference in the lives of “the most vulnerable among us, and us at our most vulnerable” (to quote Susan Ehrlich, MD, CEO of San Mateo Medical Center).

I wish you a wonderful holiday season, and the very best in your future pursuits.

-Wendy J. Jameson

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Announcing the 2012 CAPH/SNI Quality Leaders Awards Winners

This year’s CAPH/SNI Quality Leaders Awards (QLA) honored the innovative system improvements taking place among public hospital systems in California at the CAPH/SNI Annual Conference on Dec. 6th. The Top Honor was awarded to San Francisco General Hospital for the SFDPH Quality and Leadership Academy.

Honorable Mention winners included Alameda County Medical Center, Improvements in Sepsis Care, Riverside County Regional Medical Center, Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infection: Hospital-wide Reduction at a County Hospital, and Ventura County Medical Center, Reducing Medication Errors: Renewals.

The Kaiser Permanente Clinical Systems Development award went to Harbor-UCLA’s Reducing Readmissions for a High-Risk Population. This year’s QLA: Clinical Learning Award went to Riverside County Regional Medical Center, Scrub Patrol: A Novel Approach to Hand Hygiene Monitoring. Congratulations to this year’s winning organizations for creating better and more effective ways to deliver the highest quality care possible to their patients.

Full descriptions of the QLA program and winning entries can be found on the SNI website, along with a catalogue of all entries submitted this year.

Contact: Nermeen Iskander or Sasha Morduchowicz

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Highlights from the 2012 CAPH/SNI Annual Conference

The CAPH/SNI Annual Conference, Envisioning Tomorrow: Value and Quality in a Changing Landscape, held Dec. 5-7 in Newport Beach, CA, brought together 200 of California’s public hospital and other health care leaders to learn about and discuss today’s dramatically changing health care landscape.

The conference kicked-off with a members-only session that featured Dr. Philip Mehler, Chief Medical Officer at Denver Health who shared Denver Health’s journey to engage physicians in a shared quality agenda. General session speakers included Neera Tanden, President for the Center for American Progress, Matt Bai, Chief Political Correspondent for the New York Times Magazine, Peter Lee, Executive Director of the California Health Benefits Exchange, as well as panels featuring patients/family members and health plans.

The final day of the conference featured Douglas Eby, MD, Vice President of Medical Services and Peggy Porter, RN, from the Southcentral Foundation in Alaska, who shared details of Southcentral’s transformation, and Sarah Fraser, D. Prof, Principal of Sarah Fraser & Associates, an international expert on spreading transformative practices.

For information about the presentations, please visit the CAPH website.

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Public Hospital Systems Improve the Patient Experience through SNI’s Patient Experience Transformation (PExT) Initiative

SNI’s PExT Initiative has engaged nearly all public hospital systems in California to make significant inroads in improving the experience of their patients. In the PExT Action Collaborative, 10 public hospital system teams worked to improve patient/family and staff experience in a variety of service lines, including primary care clinics, medical/surgical units, urgent care, oncology, and maternity units. Several Action Collaborative teams have produced measurable results. For example, the team from San Mateo Medical Center’s Medical & Surgical Units significantly improved both patient experience as measured by HCAHPS, and the experience of staff, as measured by the staff Pulse Survey.

As part of the PExT CG-CAHPS Implementation Network, SNI led CAPH members in developing consensus-based, standardized guidelines for administering CG-CAHPS survey — a groundbreaking effort in the safety net that has resulted in compatible data and enabled benchmarking and joint quality improvement activities among California public hospital systems. To date, all public hospital systems and their patient experience survey vendors have rolled out CG-CAHPS following SNI’s recommended guidelines.

In addition, six CAPH-member hospital systems have appointed formal CXOs (Chief Experience Officers) to be accountable for patient experience performance. Public hospital systems have also created patient experience advisory councils or steering committees, and four systems demonstrated successful inclusion of patients on quality improvement teams.

Contact: Boris Kalanj

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Palliative Care Programs Actively Serving Patients in 100% of California Public Hospitals

This year the Spreading Palliative Care in Public Hospitals Initiative, run collaboratively by SNI, the California HealthCare Foundation (also the funder) and UCSF’s Palliative Care Learning Center, achieved 100% participation in the program. This means that now all public hospitals in California offer palliative care services to their patients, far exceeding the rate of only 53% among California hospitals overall. This translates to 4,000+ patients benefitting from palliative care in public hospitals per year, about 50% of whom are limited-English proficient.

To describe and disseminate the results of the Palliative Care Initiative, SNI led the writing of a journal article published in the April 2012 issue of the peer-reviewed Journal of Healthcare Quality. Recently, SNI facilitated two half-day workshops on Culturally Responsive Palliative Care, attended by multidisciplinary palliative care team members from public hospitals. In 2013, SNI will develop and run a nine-month Community of Practice for health care interpreters who work in palliative care, with the goal of providing professional support and education, discussing common practice challenges, as well as sharing resources and best practices.

Contact: Boris Kalanj

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Public Hospitals Improve Patient Care and Reduce Infections

SNI’s 2-year Sepsis and CLABSI Collaborative, generously funded by the Blue Shield of California Foundation, supports California’s public hospitals in their efforts to decrease central line blood stream infections (CLABSI) and reduce infections and associated morbidity and mortality from sepsis. Public hospitals have made significant improvements in reducing central line blood stream infections, collectively achieving a 26% CLABSI reduction since the Collaborative started. In the face of limited national consensus in their work on sepsis, public hospitals have made strides in improving sepsis protocols, developed data collection methods and defined operational definitions for the sepsis resuscitation bundle elements.

SNI is hosting the final Sepsis and CLABSI Collaborative learning session on Jan. 16, 2013 in Burbank. More information about the event is available on the SNI website.

Contact: Rosemary Phu

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EHR Adoption Spreads throughout California

SNI’s Information Technology Adoption Center (ITAC) serves as a Local Extension Center under contract with the California Health Information Partnership Services Organization, or CalHIPSO. ITAC works with California’s public hospital systems by delivering technical assistance to foster the adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) in ambulatory care and the achievement of meaningful use, as public hospital systems work to improve the quality and value of care delivered to their patients. Public hospital systems have enrolled 1,315 physicians out of the 7,720 total providers in the region, making public hospital systems the second largest group of enrolled providers in California. Examples of technical assistance that ITAC has facilitated or provided include project planning and management, clinical workflow assessment and redesign, and system configuration.

Contact: Sasha Morduchowicz

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Public Hospital Systems Recognized for Providing Outstanding Patient Care and Customer Service

  • San Francisco General Hospital And Trauma Center received a Gold Medal of Honor award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for their work to increase the number of organ donations and transplants, “bringing the ‘gift of life’ to so many” in need.
  • UC Davis and UC San Diego Health Systems each were part of the 100 top hospitals to win the Hospital of Choice Awards for 2012, designed to find America's most customer-friendly hospitals. The selections are based on a secret review of a hospital's performance in customer service, public communication and citizenship.
  • In November, San Mateo Medical Center’s patient experience improvement work in their medical/surgical unit earned them a San Mateo County Stars honorable mention award for Customer Service. The award recognizes and rewards County programs that demonstrate innovation and/or resourcefulness in providing outstanding customer service.
  • Alameda County Medical Center (ACMC) was featured in a special Safety Net Town Hall session on trauma, sponsored by Kaiser Permanente, at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Annual Forum. ACMC shared insights from their Caught in the Crossfire program to stop the cycle of violence and injury.
  • Other California public hospitals were also featured at the IHI Annual Forum, including Contra Costa Regional Medical Center for their work to reinvent its ambulatory delivery system and UC Davis Health System for their strategies to address health disparities.

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Prevention: New Incentive Available for Medi-Cal Patients Who Want to Quit Smoking

Medi-Cal members smoke at higher rates than the general population, and are at high risk for developing chronic diseases exacerbated by smoking, such as diabetes and heart disease. The Medi-Cal Incentives to Quit Smoking project (MIQS), with help from SNI, seeks to encourage Medi-Cal enrolled patients who want to quit smoking by offering a $20 gift card for seeking cessation help from the California Smokers’ Helpline at 1-800-NO-BUTTS.

To be eligible for the gift card, the individual must have a valid Beneficiary Identification Card number, be a current smoker who wants to quit, ask for the gift card when they call 1-800-NO-BUTTS, and complete the first counseling session. MIQS flyers in multiple languages are available for distribution to Medi-Cal patients, and explain exactly what they need to do to get the gift card.

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