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Tuesday recap
Top Performers Awards honor healthcare's best of the best
It was a big night for providers that have made big strides in healthcare.
The annual Top Performers Awards rolled out the red carpet for the best of the best, honoring the achievements of participating hospitals and health systems in clinical quality, supplier diversity and environmental sustainability excellence.
The major categories include:
- The Bernard A. Birnbaum, MD, Quality Leadership Award recognizes participating healthcare organizations in four cohorts through the Vizient Quality and Accountability Study, which measures performance on the quality of patient care in six domains: safety, mortality, effectiveness, efficiency, patient centeredness and equity. The study factors in measures from the Vizient Clinical Data Base and includes performance data from the HCAHPS survey and the CDC's National Healthcare Safety Network.
- The Rising Star Award recognizes academic medical centers that made significant improvement in care quality, measured by a rise in at least 20 positions in the annual Vizient Quality and Accountability Study from the prior year and scoring in the top 25.
- The Vizient Ambulatory Quality and Accountability Award measures the quality of outpatient care in five domains: access to care, continuum of care, quality, efficiency, and equity. The composite scoring system uses patient-level data from the AAMC-Vizient Clinical Practice Solutions Center®, Vizient Access and Throughput data, as well as data from the Vizient Clinical Data Base.
- The Vizient Supplier Diversity Excellence Award recognizes provider clients across five cohorts on how they champion inclusion in their supply chain and accelerate economic growth in their local community. Selection criteria is based on contract purchases of minority-, woman-, veteran-, LGBT- and disabled person-owned business enterprises as a percentage of a provider client's Vizient spend.
- The Environmental Sustainability Excellence Award ranks members across five cohorts on contributions to human and environmental health through responsible purchasing decisions. Ranking is based on the purchase of products that meet Vizient's Environmentally Preferred Purchasing Standard as well as those who commit to the White House Health and Human Services Health Sector Climate Pledge.
“I’ve spent almost 20 years studying top performers and the recognition of their achievements is well-deserved,” said Julie Cerese, Vizient SVP, performance management and national networks. “Top performers consistently demonstrate leadership and adaptability to improve outcomes across the continuum of care and in their communities. Vizient is proud to celebrate their many accomplishments.”
Read our news release to see the full list of winners. And visit our Friday wrap-up to see more photos of award recipients.
Education sessions: Patient care is the platform
Tuesday played host to numerous panels highlighting important issues. Here are some insights from a sampling of the sessions:
Seamless Transitions: Enhancing Patient Outcomes, Reducing Readmissions and Improving Care Delivery
Presenters: Gregory Maynard, MD, MSc, MHM, Chief Quality Officer, UC Davis Health; Vanessa McElroy, MSN, ACM-RN PHN, ICQCI, Director, Care Transition Management, UC Davis Health; Eddie Eabisa, MBA, CSSGB, Manager, Transitions of Care, UC Davis Health; Veronica De Los Santos, BSC, BSN, RN, TOC RN Supervisor, UC Davis Health
The big takeaway: "Establishing comprehensive care transition strategies and fostering strong partnerships wihin our organization and the community are fundamental to bridging inpatient and outpatient services," said Vanessa McElroy, director, care transition management, UC Davis Health. "These efforts are crucial for reducing readmissions and enhancing patient outcomes, ensuring that our health system consistently delivers high-quality, coordinated care to every individual we serve."
Ecosystem insights:
- Fragmented care coordination is a major issue, leading to unnecessary rehospitalizations and resource utilization.
- Multi-visit patients (MVPs), representing just 2-4% of total hospitalized patients, often account for over half of all 30-day readmissions. Many of these readmissions are avoidable and stem from gaps in care transitions.
What you should know:
- Developing and implementing individualized care plans addressing the unique needs of high-risk patients improves outcomes and reduces readmissions.
- Use multifaceted and data-informed strategies to improve care for multi-visit patients. Strategies include scheduling follow-up appointments with patients prior to discharge and establishing a post-discharge clinic.
- Aligning efforts between inpatient and outpatient teams with strong communication is critical to ensure high-risk patients receive timely follow-up care.
- Leveraging EMR tools and real-time data reporting enables healthcare providers to identify at-risk patients early, prioritize interventions and monitor outcomes effectively.
Future-Proofing Healthcare: RUSH's Digital Journey Toward AI
Presenters: Jeremy Strong, System Vice President, Supply Chain and Hospital Operations, RUSH University Medical Center; Ross Martin, Director, Strategic Sourcing and Value Analysis, RUSH University System for Health; Dustin Slodov, Director of Procurement, RUSH University System for Health
The big takeaway: “Getting the most benefit from AI and advancing technologies is about more than just adding the technology,” said Dustin Slodov, director of procurement, RUSH University System for Health. “You must align other pillars — such as your competencies, culture and executive support — first.”
Ecosystem insights:
- The healthcare supply chain is data rich, but technology poor.
What you should know:
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RUSH University used AI and automation to streamline procurement and bolster inventory control. Data-driven decision-making has pushed the organization toward even greater efficiency and excellence.
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Relationships are key to technology. Understand stakeholders and your own department well and know your skill ceilings and floors.
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Executive buy-in and support are key, as are learnings about technology and its pitfalls.
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Build a culture of change management — “It’s always been done this way” is the absolute worst answer.
Transforming Today for a Healthy and Sustainable Tomorrow
Presenters: Terri M. Scannell, MBA and Law, Principal Advisor, ESG and Sustainability, OhioHealth; Corey D. Perry, JD, MDiv, Vice President, Mission, Ministry & Ethics, OhioHealth; Allegra Wiesler, Sustainability Advisor, OhioHealth; Meredith Edwards, MBA, Director of Supply Chain Sustainability and Diversity, Stanford Health Care; Terry Duffina, MBA, MA, Director of the Sustainability Program Office, Stanford Health Care
The big takeaway: "Our mission is to provide exceptional care for all through experiences that build a lifetime of trust. How can we earn trust if we do not recognize that what we do today creates an impact now that will last for generations?” said Corey Perry, VP, mission, ministry and ethics at OhioHealth. “We must take responsibility for what we do and how we do it to lessen our environmental impact for generations to come.”
Ecosystem insights:
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that Scope 3 emissions — which largely includes those within the supply chain — constitute approximately 80% of the healthcare sector’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
What you should know:
- Several actions to promote reduced GHG emissions also can reduce the cost of care delivery while lessening environmental impact and improving resource consumption, patient experience and population health.
- Implement practices that enhance care quality and patient outcomes while delivering care in the least energy- or waste-intensive setting such as using telehealth, primary care or ambulatory care when appropriate.
- Align sustainability with your mission to emphasize the multifaceted benefits of environmental sustainability, including staff engagement, profitable growth, health equity and enhanced resilience against climate-related disruptions.
- Don’t outsource the hard work and of insight and creativity — tap your internal experts and community members for ideas about sustainable practices within their areas, which fosters engagement and boosts culture.
- Set teams up for success by celebrating wins and learning from challenges.
Revolutionizing Care Transitions: How Strategic Partnerships Can Increase Capacity
Presenters: Kelly Pigott, MSW, LCSW, ACM, Director of Ambulatory Care Coordination and Post-Acute Network, Population Health, Northwestern Medicine; Valmira Sylejmani, MHA, Manager Post-Acute Network, Northwestern Medicine; Anna Blackburn, MSW, LCSW, ACM-SW, Manager of Post-Acute Network, Northwestern Medicine; Vanessa McElroy, MSN, ACM-RN PHN, ICQCI, Director, Care Transition Management, UC Davis Health; Joleen Lonigan, DNP, RN, NE-BC, FACHE, Associate Chief Nursing Officer and Executive Director, UC Davis Health; Eddie Eabisa, MBA, CSSGB, Manager, Transitions of Care, UC Davis Health
The big takeaway: “To mitigate capacity constraints and ensure quality patient outcomes, effective collaboration, proactive planning and embedded clinical support across sites of care are key,” said Kelly Pigott, director of ambulatory care coordination and post-acute network, population health, at Northwestern Medicine.
Ecosystem insights:
- Northwestern Memorial Hospital encountered long length of stays, caused in part by underutilization of long-term acute care (LTAC) placement and patients unnecessarily transferring from ICU to medicine units rather than discharging to LTAC, when possible.
- In 2021, UC Davis Health identified 3,436 avoidable days directly related to delays in short-term skilled nursing facilities (SNF) placements. Complexity of patient cases often led to SNF denials, exacerbating the problem.
What you should know:
- Increase clinically appropriate LTAC referrals and placements from target ICU and medicine units to reduce length of stay and excess days. Early identification of LTAC-appropriate patients is essential to reduce insurance or clinical denials from LTAC.
- Use physician rounding to improve patient care. For instance, Northwest Medicine (NM) physicians rounded on NM patients at LTAC hospitals to strengthen partnerships and build trust with patients.
- UC Davis established interventions including solidifying an agreement with a local SNF to secure additional beds; developing a real-time bed tracker to monitor SNF bed occupancy and forecast discharge dates; and appointing a dedicated supervisor to review and approve bed lease placements and empowering discharge planners to escalate placement delays.
- They also capped LOS for leased beds at 40 days (after which patients transitioned to SNF standard beds), and integrated UC Davis clinicians within the SNF to ensure high-quality care and timely rehabilitation.
Innovating Together: A Multidisciplinary Care Approach to Reducing Hypoglycemic Events
Presenters: Stephen Lemon, PharmD, FCCM, CPHQ, BCCCP, BCPS, Clinical Pharmacy Specialist, Informatics, Quality, and Data Analytics, University of Florida Health Shands; Brooks Morgan, RN, Senior Quality Improvement Specialist, University of Florida Health Shands; Michele N. Lossius, MD, Associate Chief of Staff, University of Florida Health Shands; Victorine R. Moore, BSN RN, Coordinator of Performance Improvement, Wellstar Health System; Julie LaFontaine, MSN-RN, CNL, CPPS, CSSGB, Clinical Nurse Leader, Wellstar Health System; Elizabeth Pennington, PharmD, Director, Wellstar Health System; Zachary D. Bush, PharmD, BS, Director of Pharmacy, Wellstar Health System – Douglas Medical Center
The big takeaway: “There’s no single solution when it comes to hypoglycemia,” said Victorine Moore, coordinator of performance improvement at Wellstar Douglas Medical Center. “Blood sugar management is a multidisciplinary issue. Instead of saying, ‘This is just a nursing problem’ or ‘This is just a physician problem,’ you have to bring everyone together — from nurses to pharmacists to diabetes educators to nutritionists to food service.”
Ecosystem insights:
- The Vizient Quality and Accountability Scorecard incorporates a hypoglycemia metric, which defines a blood glucose ≤50 mg/dL for a patient receiving insulin as preventable harm.
- Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requires hospitals to document every instance of a patient's blood sugar dropping below 40 mg/dL within 24 hours of receiving insulin or other diabetes medication. As of January 2023, hospitals must report on three self-selected “hospital harm” glycemic measures from a list of 11 eCQMs.
What you should know:
- Work with experts from across your organization to identify patients who are at risk for hypoglycemia, including those with low body mass index, end-stage renal disease, dialysis, decreased oral intake or who use feeding tubes.
- Build reports that pinpoint patients at high risk for a hypoglycemic event and make nurses aware by including notes on insulin administration orders.
- Implement interdisciplinary rounds so that nurses and other clinicians can escalate concerns about high-risk patients with physicians.
- Standardize processes for hypoglycemia in departments like pharmacy, nursing, and food and nutrition services. For example, follow the “3 Ms”: Meals to medication in 30 minutes.
Froedtert, Mayo and Yale Unite to Renovate Product Recall System
Presenters: Anna Cerilli, MS, RN, Value and Safety Clinical Coordinator, Yale New Haven Health; Emily Funk, MBA, Project Coordinator, Yale New Haven Health; Cherie Bragg, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Performance Improvement Coordinator, Yale New Haven Health; Jennifer Sanders, Contract Portfolio Manager, Supply Chain, Froedtert Health; Amy Conway, MSEd, Enterprise Recall Analyst, Mayo Clinic.
The big takeaway: “The national recall management system is broken, which puts patients, staff and healthcare systems at risk — which is why systems are uniting through the Recall Management Interest Group to solve this problem,” said Cherie Bragg, performance improvement coordinator at Yale New Haven Health. “We’ve come together to create best practices and mitigation strategies to reduce the risks and pain points currently embedded within the national recall ecosystem.”
Ecosystem insights:
- Swiftness and accuracy is nonexistent in the recall realm even though they are critical factors in patient safety.
- The methods many suppliers use to send recall notifications to healthcare systems are slow, inaccurate, often obsolete and always challenging — and research shows 87% of recall events sent from recall management platforms are not applicable to health system members.
- Other challenges include inaccurate contact information for systems along with gaps in critical information; no formatting standardization; and data presented in PDF formats that must be decoded.
What you should know:
- Recalls are not a bad thing — they keep patients safe. But the pain points in recall management must be addressed.
- Speed to safety is critical to ensure patient safety. One way to ensure that speed to safety is for suppliers to email recall notifications.
- Healthcare systems are uniting through the Recall Management Interest Group to create lasting change and urge suppliers to adopt recall standards.
Supplier education: Tuesday played host to four supplier education sessions that focused on topics ranging from top trends to best practices for engaging with Vizient. But they all had one common theme: If you want to better patient outcomes, you can’t do it alone.
That was certainly the message in “Building Bridges: Strengthening Supplier-Provider Partnerships,” during which three sets of providers and suppliers shared their successes in collaborating across the care continuum.
“Don’t shy away from the opportunities that exist. Partnerships are a way to raise the bar across the board — we shouldn’t be the anomaly,” said Dr. James Moses, SVP and chief quality, safety and experience officer, Corewell Health. “This is something that all of healthcare needs.”
Visit the Vizient Newsroom on Friday to check out the full recaps of supplier education sessions in our event wrap-up.
It takes a 'village': Annual volunteer event brings attendees together to fight hunger
The only thing more packed than the snack bags at Volunteer Village this year was the room in which the event took place. Attendees flocked to the Latour Ballroom to help relieve hunger during the annual community engagement activity, sponsored by Sodexo, that benefits local nonprofit Three Square Food Bank.
Ginger Ertel, Vizient SVP, pharmacy networks, was hard at work decorating the snack bags with stickers and drawings to make them “fun and happy.”
“My favorite part of the event is knowing who the bags are going to and that it’s going to brighten their day,” she said. “It always feels nice to give back, and to connect with other attendees in the process.”
And that’s a big reason Volunteer Village continues to be such a draw year after year: It’s a reminder that sustainable health access is only possible when we establish a strong foundation in our communities.
"Each year, I find it especially meaningful to see thousands of healthcare leaders stand shoulder-to-shoulder, packing snack bags to address childhood hunger with our partner Three Square Food Bank,” said Jennifer Lind, Vizient senior director, corporate social responsibility. “Paving the way for better access to healthy foods, safe living environments and financial security is fundamental to bettering our health systems. Coming together like we do at Summit gives me hope that a healthier, more sustainable future is possible."
Tuesday’s ESG Impact Spend luncheon and product fair kicked off with the video above, which highlights the collective power of healthcare providers, diverse and small businesses, and large corporations to drive meaningful change in healthcare through intentional purchasing and community investment.
That message was further amplified by the event’s speakers, who emphasized the importance of moving toward a more sustainable and equitable future.
“By engaging with thought leaders like Kate Chang from the United Nations and David Zuckerman from the Healthcare Anchor Network, as well as connecting with innovative suppliers at the expo, attendees can consider and put into action the lasting social impact of their purchasing decisions,” said Shaleta Dunn-Vick, Vizient VP, ESG impact spend. “Every partnership and dollar spent has the potential to advance equity, sustainability and community wealth.”
During the fair, suppliers set up booths outside of the Cristal Ballroom and on the Cristal terrace, showcasing products and services that inspire positive change. Attendees like Michael O’Keefe, senior director quality assurance and regulatory compliance, and Saima Awan, lead, business intelligence and analytics, both of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, talked with suppliers and took product samples to share with their colleagues.
“It’s great to see what’s available and explore the patient-centeredness of the products and what they can help do for our patients,” O’Keefe said.
“We don’t always get to see what’s happening on the supplier side,” Awan added. “It’s really refreshing to see every aspect of healthcare.”
The event, Dunn-Vick said, was designed to showcase suppliers as essential partners in ESG goals and to inspire organizations to commit to ensuring that no patient, business or community is left behind. For those already entrenched in that work, the luncheon and product fair provided an opportunity to reflect on how everyone plays a role in building a better future.
“Speaking to the culture of Dana-Farber, this is everyone’s goal,” Awan said. “Michael and I don’t work in procurement, but when we see the chance to understand the work that’s happening in this space, we share it. It’s a culture where we know we’re all part of the solution.”
What we’re hearing …
We asked: What do you see as the biggest trend in healthcare going into 2025?
"As an industry, we’ve got to figure out how to provide the best quality patient care at a lower cost. But it’s not an easy feat. All of us providers coming out of the pandemic are tired from our staffing shortages. So, it’s going to be really important to focus on our people, their wellness and keeping them engaged in order to get through the next five to 10 years." — Mary Bedell, director of high reliability and quality academy, The Queen’s Health System
"The continued shift of clinical procedures from hospitals to the ambulatory and clinic space will continue this coming year. As a supplier, that’s what we're seeing as the primary driver in the market today. That’s why it will be really important for us to understand healthcare models, reimbursement structures and how providers are purchasing to make sure we can meet their needs in an ever-changing market. That could be looking at how products are packaged to how we work with our distributors, our GPO partners and providers at large hospitals. — Beth Nelson, director corporate accounts, Solventum
Wednesday’s highlights:
Closing general session: Dr. Omar Lateef, president and CEO of Rush and Rush University Medical Center, will deliver the closing keynote. Under Dr. Lateef’s leadership, Rush has set the nation’s standard in healthcare quality and safety, modeled excellence in clinical leadership both regionally and nationally, and maintained its longstanding commitment to health equity. The closing session also will honor the winner of the 2024 Humanitarian Award. (1-2:15 p.m., Cristal Ballroom)
- Be sure to check out today’s peer-to-peer sessions, set from 8 a.m. to noon, which provide opportunities to discuss best practices and proven strategies to enhance performance across the continuum of care. The sessions are segmented by audience, including:
- Cancer and cardiovascular service line executives (Castillon)
- Clinical documentation improvement leaders (Ruinart)
- Diversity, health equity and inclusion leaders (Fleurie)
- Medical executives (Hermitage)
- Quality executives (Bandol)
- Nurse executives (Avignon)
- Operations executives (Pomerol)
- Pharmacy executives (Musigny)
- Supply chain executives (Meursault)
- Generative AI Demo: It's the final day to swing by Krug 2 and see what Vizient's new AI capabilities are all about. Don't miss out!
- Innovative Technology Exchange: The exchange gives supply chain and clinical leaders the chance to interact with some of today's most cutting-edge technologies. Stop by to discover how these innovations improve clinical outcomes, elevate safety and drive improvements in healthcare delivery. (2:30-5 p.m., Lafite Ballroom)
- Scorecard consultation for providers will take place from 2:30-5 p.m. in Latour 5 and 6.
- Closing celebration: Don’t worry whether dancing or lounging is your style — you’ll be able to do both at XS Encore Nightclub. Enjoy light bites, drinks and camaraderie during the closing night event from 6-9 p.m.