For more than 20 years, members from academic medical centers, health care systems and community hospitals of all sizes have benefitted from the numerous successful improvement initiatives delivered through performance improvement collaboratives. The Vizient Performance Improvement (PI) Collaboratives program provides an ideal setting for members to work together on initiatives that improve specific aspects of their clinical, operational and financial performance.
Participation in collaboratives offers many benefits, from identifying and sharing leading practices among like-minded leaders to accessing subject matter expert insights and resources. Now, some of those resources are being shared more broadly.
In addition to introducing the rapid-cycle project methodology earlier this year, which opened up a quicker way to improve performance for participants, executive summaries that offer findings and key takeaways from six high-impact collaboratives completed between 2016 and 2018, are being made available to those not participating in the collaboratives program. The completed projects are listed below and include hyperlinks to the executive summaries.
Joy in the Workplace The impact of burnout in the workforce has negative consequences on an organization, including poor patient care, higher turnover rates, and the financial costs associated with recruiting and training replacement staff. This nine-month collaborative focused on reducing the causes of organizational burnout and enabled organizations to work on projects in three focus areas: workplace safety and wellness, supportive workplace culture, and workplace efficiency.
Optimizing Post-Acute Care Resources to Reduce MSPB Reducing variation in post-acute care utilization patterns and total cost was identified as a strategic opportunity for many hospitals to improve their Medicare Spend Per Beneficiary (MSPB) performance. Hospitals will need to transition their focus to utilization and spend reduction opportunities outside of the acute care setting. This nine-month collaborative was structured to help Vizient members in advancing their MSPB performance with a goal of reducing hospital readmissions and improving the key drivers of performance in the post-acute care arena.
Improving Value-Based Care for Cardiac Patients By structuring payment around a patient’s total experience across the care continuum, bundled payment structures help support better care coordination and improved outcomes. While bundled payment initiatives are not new to the health care marketplace, they can be challenging to implement successfully. This project increased participants’ knowledge and understanding of cardiovascular bundles and move towards readiness for value-based care.
Enhanced Mortality Review Process What can any organization learn from reviewing patients’ deaths? This project was designed to help members perform systematic mortality reviews to identify patient safety issues that resulted in or contributed to patient deaths and improve care processes. Participants reviewed all deaths, rather than a sample, to identify improvement opportunities for reducing unexpected or preventable inpatient deaths.
Medication Management for Care Transitions (MMCT) Ineffective patient transitions after hospitalization, whether being discharged to home or to a post-acute care facility, have been identified as factors driving higher readmissions and poor patient outcomes, especially in certain patient populations. With the increasing complexity of patients' medication regimen, medication discrepancies during transitions in care are common. This collaborative provided members with assistance in implementing and sustaining MMCT programs that can reduce adverse events and hospital readmissions.
Early Recognition and Intervention for Sepsis Sepsis continues to be the leading cause of death in U.S. hospitals. In addition to being costly and deadly, it is also time-sensitive: For every hour that passes, the risk of patient mortality increases. This two-phase collaborative provided opportunities to discuss both proven as well as new solutions and processes to save lives, reduce readmissions and decrease costs.
Whether it’s networking with peers, learning from subject matter experts or from work already completed and accessing valuable resources, participation in Vizient performance improvement collaboratives offers endless opportunities to help members improve performance.
Interested in learning more about how your organization could benefit from participating in a member-driven path to improvement? Contact us today. For collaborative participants interested in all the resources available, visit the Knowledge Center.