Quality Fair 2009 – Navigating the Course to Excellence

The Medical Center’s 5th Annual Quality Fair, designed to improve the patient experience, drew enthusiastic participation from our staff and physicians. Employees identified challenges and developed solutions in each of our core value areas using the theme, “Navigating the Course to Excellence.” The broad range of  projects showed a strong emphasis on quality and safety. “Our Quality Fair directly empowers employees to identify and fix issues,” notes Stephanie Wolf-Rosenblum, MD. “We all benefit when staff and providers have increased confidence and ownership in the organization.”

Grand Prize Winner: Uncharted Waters

Team Lead: Paula Menakaya, RN, Patient and Family Services

A comprehensive new process to improve patient chart documentation, leading to increased specificity and clarity of patient medical records. The outcome is improved care and appropriate Medicare reimbursement for services.

People’s Choice Award: Endoscopy Equipment Management

Team Lead: Lucy Flynn, RN, Endoscopy

Implemented three new inventory control methods in Endoscopy that resulted in significant cost savings and the potential to expand the process to other areas of the hospital.

Core Value of People:  Positive Patient ID Using Soft ID

Team Lead: Celeste Karski, Laboratory

Patient bar code scanning at the bedside ensures a positive patient ID, fewer repeat laboratory tests, and faster turnaround in the Emergency Department and on inpatient floors.

Core Value of Service: Recipes for Success

Team Lead: Edith Laramore, RN, NICU

Developed process improvements to ensure a smoother transition of high risk newborns from the delivery room to the NICU. The result is easier preparation by staff and quicker treatment and stabilization for our youngest patients.  

Core Value of Quality: Clinical Quality Value Analysis

Team Lead: Robert Daigneault, Maggie Primeau, APRN, Helen Corbett, MD, FACS, Patient Care Services

Through Continuous Quality Value Analysis (CQVA), systems are in place to standardize equipment and services without sacrificing quality or increasing costs.

Core Value of Finance: In the Land of Centralized Pre-Certification

Team Lead: Jessica Wolotschaj, Pre-Certification Department

Established a centralized pre-certification department that alleviates the need for each doctor’s practice to obtain insurance pre-certifications. The result is more time available for patient care and fewer pre-certification denials.

Core Value of Growth: Telestroke Program

Team Lead: Pat Marsh, RN, Emergency Services

Implemented a new Telestroke program in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital to accurately and quickly diagnose acute stroke so that patients can receive timely and appropriate care.

Click here if you'd like to see the results from the 2007 Quality Fair.