A tireless advocate for infection prevention, North Fulton Regional Hospital announces its participation in a new Georgia Hospital Association (GHA) Partnership for Health and Accountability (PHA) initiative known as STOP BSI.
This initiative has already been implemented in various facilities, producing impressive results. Those leading the charge with the STOP BSI initiative (including Johns Hopkins University Quality and Research Group and Michigan Health and Hospital Association Keystone Center), Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infections (CLABSI) were nearly eliminated in over 103 intensive care units. This improvement has been sustained for almost four years.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), an estimated 248,000 bloodstream infections occur in U.S. hospitals each year. These infections are usually serious, typically causing a prolongation of hospital stay and increased cost and risk of mortality. North Fulton Regional Hospital is dedicated to reducing this risk through the implementation of various quality initiatives, including STOP BSI.
“We recognize that infection prevention is a priority, not only for our staff at the hospital but also for the patients and their family members,” said Kathy Young, Chief Nursing Officer of North Fulton Regional Hospital. “We have a responsibility to our patients and their loved ones to do all in our power to ensure they receive the highest quality care available. At the end of the day, that is why we are here.”
This project requires that an intensive care unit do the following (as described by the Georgia Hospital Association:
a. Implement the Comprehensive Unit-based safety program (CUSP) to improve teamwork between doctors and nurses and learn from mistakes. The five steps associated with this program are as follows:
1. Educate staff on the science of safety
2. Identify defects in care
3. Assign and execute as part of the ICU CLABSI team
4. Learn from one defect per month
5. Work to improve teamwork and safety culture using tools we provide
b. Implement interventions to reduce CLABSI that include:
§ Educate staff on five evidence-based practices to reduce CLABSI
§ Remove unnecessary lines
§ Wash hands prior to procedure
§ Use Maximal Barrier Precautions
§ Clean skin with Chlorhexidine
§ Avoid Femoral Lines
§ Implement a checklist to ensure compliance with these practices
§ Empower nurses to ensure doctors comply with the checklist
§ Collect unit level data each month using standardized definitions
§ Provide feedback on infection rates to hospitals and at unit level
§ Implement a monthly team checklist to assess overall progress of project
STOP BSI is but one of many quality improvement initiatives North Fulton Regional Hospital has undertaken. For the last two years, the Georgia Hospital Association has awarded North Fulton Regional Hospital for its infection prevention projects in the areas of ventilator-associated pneumonia and surgical wound infections. The Roswell hospital has also been recognized by many other organizations, including the American heart Association for its achievements in the treatment areas of Heart Failure and Coronary Artery Disease (Gold status award for each) and Stroke (Silver award status). According to the American Heart Association, North Fulton Regional Hospital is one of only two hospitals in the state of Georgia and one of only 29 in the country to have reached award status in all three of the programs the American Heart Association supports.
North Fulton Regional Hospital (NFRH), part of Tenet Georgia, is a 202-bed, acute-care hospital located on Highway 9, Alpharetta Highway, in Roswell. Opened in 1983, NFRH serves North Fulton and surrounding counties through its team of over 1000 employees, 400 staff physicians and 200 volunteers. NFRH is a state-designated Level II trauma center and provides a continuum of services through its centers and programs, including neurosciences, orthopedics, rehabilitation, surgical services, bariatric surgical weight loss, gastroenterology and oncology. The hospital is fully accredited and also is certified as a Primary Stroke Center by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the nation’s oldest and largest hospital accreditation agency.
Learn more about the quality standards at North Fulton Regional Hospital by visiting www.northfultoinregional.com/quality. For more information about North Fulton Regional Hospital and its various medical and community programs, visit www.northfultonregional.com, or call 770-751-2500.