SEATTLE — Jefferson Healthcare was recognized for improving patient safety at the 82nd annual meeting of the Washington State Hospital Association in Seattle.
Jefferson Healthcare earned the 2014 “Washington State Hospital Association Achieving Best Care” award at meeting last week.
The best care award is in recognition of the Port Townsend hospital’s efforts to decrease patient harm through its participation in the Partnership for Patients national initiative.
The nationwide collaborative effort aims to reduce the number of hospital-acquired conditions by 40 percent and hospital readmissions by 20 percent by the end of this year.
“Our hospital staff members take patient safety seriously, and we are glad to have our efforts recognized by our peers,” said Mike Glenn, chief executive officer.
“This work helps us establish best practices in our hospital so that they become second nature, which is great news for patients.”
The initiative focuses on reducing harm in 10 key areas: adverse drug events, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, central line-associated blood stream infections, injuries from falls and immobility, obstetrical adverse events, pressure ulcers, surgical site infections, venous thromboembolism, ventilator-associated pneumonia and preventable readmissions.
The “Achieving Best Care” award was presented to hospitals that achieved the highest scores on harm reduction in the key areas, the hospital said in a news release.
The scoring was based on the size of the hospital, the strategies in which it was participating and if it was in the top one-fourth of high-performing hospitals in the state.
Jefferson Healthcare was one of 14 WSHA hospitals that received the award.
All of the top performers reached the Partnership for Patients goal of reducing harm by 40 percent and readmissions by 20 percent, and many also reached a goal of zero harm over a sustained period.
