On December 1, the United Hospital Fund (UHF) presented the GNYHA Foundation with a 2008 Health Care Improvement Grant toward a second year of quality improvement activities. The two-year, $500,000 grant will fund a number of new and ongoing Collaboratives, co-sponsored by Greater New York Hospital Association and UHF. In presenting the award to GNYHA Vice President for Quality and Patient Safety Terri Straub, UHF President Jim Tallon said, “Through all of this hard work, New York is becoming a national leader in improving quality and patient safety, and is developing an infrastructure that can sustain quality improvement efforts into the future.”

Members of the Quality Collaborative Team and Experts-on-Call at the 2008 UHF Grant Awards: Andrea Hoberman (UHF), Gina Shin (GNYHA), Lori Finkelstein-Blonde (Mt. Sinai), Carmel Reardon (Montefiore), Kathi Mullaney (Metropolitan), Rachel Stricof (New York State DOH), Hillary Jalon (UHF), Barbara Smith (St. Luke’s Roosevelt), Terri Straub (GNYHA), David Calfee (Mt. Sinai), Brian Koll (Beth Israel Medical Center)

The Collaboratives: The GNYHA-UHF quality partnership began in 2005 with the Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infection (CLABs) Collaborative, which included 38 hospitals and saw a 70% reduction overall in infection rates. Building on the success of the CLABs Collaborative, GNYHA and UHF launched the Rapid Response System Collaborative, which aims to reduce cardiac deaths by dispatching clinical teams to the bedside before early warning signs escalate to a crisis; the Perinatal Safety Collaborative, which works to increase the safety of labor and delivery for mothers and infants through a team approach; and a collaborative that is developing a new evidence-based “bundle” of protocols to reduce the incidence of the Clostridium difficile or C. diff infection.

New Projects: In 2009, GNYHA and UHF will apply the Health Care Improvement Grant funding to at least two new programs.  The first, the Clinical Quality Fellowship, is an intensive training program that will prepare clinical professionals to become leaders in quality improvement initiatives. The 15-month curriculum, which includes learning retreats, educational conference calls, mentor support, and mini-workshops, will launch in January 2009. GNYHA and UHF are also working with IPRO, New York State’s quality improvement organization, to launch a new collaborative to address Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections. To learn more about these programs, contact Terri Straub or visit http://www.gnyha.org/4700/Default.aspx.