When GNYHA and the United Hospital Fund (UHF) began a series of cooperative initiatives to enhance the quality of care in hospitals, they hoped to design an effective model to improve patient outcomes. Now, less than three years later, four collaboratives have been launched, the Critical Care Leadership Network has been created, frontline staff have become quality coaches, and a standardized model to support these initiatives has been identified.
     
The model that has been developed is one that relies upon strong collaboration across participating hospitals, which work together to implement an identified "bundle" of activities to improve their delivery of care and to share best practices for accomplishing that goal. The model also includes commitment from senior hospital leadership, dedication of multidisciplinary teams, regular educational sessions, technical support, clinical "experts on call," the involvement of frontline staff, and data collection and analysis. Over the last three years, GNYHA and UHF have rolled out four separate collaboratives focusing on reducing the rate of both central line-associated bloodstream and Clostridium difficile infections, improving perinatal safety, and implementing rapid response systems in hospitals. 
     
In addition, GNYHA and UHF created the Critical Care Leadership Network to coordinate a unified approach for delivering care in the New York metropolitan area by sharing and standardizing the implementation of evidence-based practices to improve patient outcomes in the ICU. 
     
Look for a special insert on the GNYHA/UHF quality initiatives in a future issue of Skyline News. In the meantime, if you have questions about GNYHA's quality and patient safety activities, contact Terri Straub, Zeynep Sumer, or Gina Shin at GNYHA.