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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACTS:
Alven Weil
Amanda Forster
Premier Inc. Premier Inc.
704.733.5797 202.879.8004
QUEST- High Performing Hospitals Collaborative: Nationwide hospital collaborative seeking to reduce mortality by 17 percent, improve reliability of care by nearly 13 percent
Premier healthcare alliance QUEST initiative also tests healthcare innovations to reduce HAIs and emergency response times, improve doctor-nurse communications
Washington, DC (December 3, 2008) – Patient mortality could be reduced by 17 percent and reliability of care could improve by nearly 13 percent if the not-for-profit hospitals participating in a nationwide collaborative attained the project’s quality goals, according to an analysis released today.
Of the approximately 2.3 million patients treated annually by hospitals participating in the project, achieving these top performance goals translates to 8,628 lives saved and 22,364 additional patients receiving all appropriate evidence-based care measures each year.
QUEST is a voluntary, three-year project with 166 not-for-profit hospitals across 31 states designed to springboard hospitals to new levels of performance. Using benchmarked data from the Premier healthcare alliance’s clinical database, Premier and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) identified the main factors that lead to deaths, errors and excessive costs. Using this information, hospitals are able to share best practices and systematically initiate efforts proven to dramatically improve quality and patient outcomes. QUEST’s three-year performance improvement targets are to:
- Save lives – Achieve a mortality rate that is 17 percent less than expected.
- Safely reduce the cost of care – Reduce inpatient costs below the midpoint among participating hospitals.
- Deliver the most reliable and effective care – Deliver every recommended evidence-based care measure for each patient.
- Improve patient safety (year 2 measure) – Prevent incidents of harm in more than 20 categories, including healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs) and birth injuries.
- Increase satisfaction (year 2 measure) – Dramatically improve the patient care experience.
“Through QUEST, we have developed a holistic process to achieve the quality improvement gains that American patients expect and deserve,” said Richard Norling, Premier president and CEO. “QUEST is the most ambitious national collaborative effort undertaken in healthcare. By setting aggressive goals, identifying next-generation technologies and creating a forum for experts to share best practices, we have found a formula for improvement that is working to create a future of exceptional care.”
“QUEST is defining a new, higher standard for healthcare safety, quality and cost-effectiveness,” said Don Berwick, MD, MPP, FRCP, president and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). “We look forward to working with QUEST hospitals and other experts to create a quality blueprint building upon IHI’s 5 Million Lives campaign to lead a positive shift in our nation’s healthcare.”
The goals of QUEST are consistent with those of the National Priorities Partnership, convened by the National Quality Forum (NQF) to improve the overall health of the patient population through:
- Reducing HAIs, adverse events and mortality;
- Eliminating waste while ensuring appropriate care; and
- Enhancing patient satisfaction with care.
At the conclusion of the QUEST program, Premier will share information about how QUEST hospitals were able to achieve progress in these areas with the National Priorities Partnership and the larger healthcare community. In addition, hospitals that are able to achieve the performance targets set by QUEST to realize improvements in quality, safety and cost of care will be eligible to receive a financial reward.
“The reality of healthcare today is that we live in a culture of low expectations. Rather than developing new solutions to provide high reliability care, we pile on to an existing, broken chassis,” said Jerod M. Loeb, PhD, executive vice president, Division of Quality Measurement and Research, The Joint Commission. “We need to focus on proven, practical solutions. The hospitals participating in QUEST have been using a rigorous approach to performance measurement in order to turn data into useable evidence-based information to guide improved patient care and clinical outcomes.”
QUEST Comparative Innovation Program (CIP)
Premier also announced six finalists from the QUEST Comparative Innovation
Program (CIP), which tests the effectiveness of new healthcare products and
technologies through QUEST. These solutions show evidence of effectiveness in
decreasing hospital-associated conditions, such as catheter-associated urinary
tract infections (UTIs), methicillin-resistant staph aureus (MRSA) and
ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), as well as improving doctor-nurse
communications and reducing emergency response times.
Innovations selected as part of the CIP were evaluated by clinicians and selected based on their potential to help hospitals achieve the goals of QUEST. These solutions will be tested in the real world by QUEST hospitals and measured to determine their effectiveness in improving the quality, reliability, safety and cost-effectiveness of care.
The six technologies identified by CIP are:
- Bard Medical Division Bardex I.C. Foley Catheter to reduce catheter-associated UTIs;
- BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) - BD GeneOhm™ MRSA Assay rapidly identifies MRSA colonized patients, enabling swift interventions to prevent infection and transmission;
- Covidien Mallinckrodt Hi-Lo Evac Endotracheal Tube to reduce VAP;
- Remel (part of Thermo Fisher Scientific) Spectra™ MRSA to detect nasal colonization of MRSA to aid in the prevention and control of it;
- Sage Products Inc. Toothette Q-Care Oral Cleansing and Suctioning Systems to reduce VAP;
- Vocera Communications Vocera Communications Solution to reduce emergency response times and improve doctor-nurse communications.
“QUEST is a collaborative effort among care providers, not a competition. Together, manufacturers and healthcare experts are working to improve the quality of care while safely reducing costs,” said Susan DeVore, chief operating officer at Premier. “Through the Comparative Innovation Program, we will be able to put innovative solutions in the hands of clinicians as soon as possible so they can begin using them to care for patients in the safest, most efficacious manner.”
About the Premier healthcare alliance, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,400 U.S. hospitals
and nearly 70,000 other healthcare sites working together to achieve high quality,
cost-effective care. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier maintains
the nation's most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes
information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader
in helping deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier works with the
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom's National
Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in
Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has offices in San Diego, Philadelphia and
Washington.
http://www.premierinc.com