Quality & Patient Safety

Quality care is important to every patient

But how can you really know the care you’re receiving is the best? The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the lead federal agency tasked with improving healthcare nationwide, defines quality healthcare as doing the right thing at the right time in the right way to achieve the best possible results. At the HCA South Atlantic facilities, our experts live by this definition every day; in fact, we’ve been recognized for our commitment to quality care by the most respected organizations in healthcare.

HCA South Atlantic Quality Mission Statement

The vision and mission of the HCA South Atlantic Division Quality Department is to promote the delivery of quality patient care in a safe healthcare environment.

In pursuit of our mission, we believe the following value statements are essential to this accomplishment:

We constantly look for ways to innovate through technology and improve the quality of our care and services.
We monitor the effectiveness of patient safety, patient safety initiatives, and implement strategies to continuously improve our environment.
We share best demonstrated clinical practices and knowledge to improve the outcomes of our patients across our division and HCA.

Quality initiatives

The South Atlantic Division of HCA strives continually to provide excellent quality care in a safe environment. Our organization is involved in the following state and national healthcare quality initiatives:

JCAHO and CMS Healthcare Quality Alliance
Leapfrog Group and National Quality Forum Safe Practices
Institute for Healthcare Improvement
Agency for Healthcare Administration

Core measures

Acute Myocardial Infarction
Congestive Heart Failure
Pneumonia
Surgical Infection Prevention/Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP)

Within each hospital, we utilize a healthcare team to make improvements in the following areas:

Patient Safety
Pain Management
Patient Flow Efficiency throughout the Hospital System

Multiple areas are monitored to evaluate processes and outcomes. Some examples include:

Hand washing
Restraints
Patient Safety Goals
Resuscitation Practices and Outcomes
Perinatal Safety
Appropriateness of Procedures Performed

Working with caregivers from across the country, HCA has invested more than $300 million to develop industry leading technology, systems, and processes to improve patient safety. This is just one part of our commitment to providing a broad range of high quality services that meet the growing and changing healthcare needs of our community.

Patient safety

Patient Safety is a vital concern for all healthcare providers. The 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine, To Err is Human, triggered significant action at HCA. In February of 2000, HCA began an in-depth analysis of patient safety issues within hospitals. This analysis lead to a company-wide commitment to assuring patient safety practices are implemented in every HCA hospital. Through this web site we will share our learnings, our mistakes, and our successes with other healthcare providers in the belief that healthcare providers, working together, can eliminate many patient safety concerns.

Patient safety is our culture

The HCA mission statement affirms that "Above all else, we are committed to the care and improvement of human life." This simple statement is the foundation of our culture and our passion for patient safety.

Thomas F. Frist, Jr., MD, a co-founder and former chairman, is fond of saying "putting patients first" is the secret of success in healthcare. Jack Bovender, CEO and Chairman of HCA describe the patient safety initiative as a response to the "sacred trust" that healthcare providers have with their patients.

At HCA, Patient Safety is a company-wide effort to ensure that we are using the best practices and the most appropriate, state-of-the-art technology in the medication use process.

Patient safety goals for HCA

Our goal is to create a culture of patient safety as a tangible expression of HCA's commitment to putting patients first.

Establish patient safety as a visible commitment to our "putting patients first" philosophy
Move from blaming people to improving processes
Improve use of technology to prevent and detect error
Use data to identify and measure improvements

Patient safety and quality improvement initiatives

HCA South Atlantic employs many ongoing patient safety and quality strategies as part of a dynamic performance improvement program and our facilities have been recognized by The Joint Commission as a Top Performer in Key Quality Measures. Outcomes include decreased hospital length of stay, decreased patient mortality, and decreased complication rates. Examples of patient safety and quality activities include:

Participation in a formal Patient Safety Organization (PSO).
Site specific and enterprise wide evidence based, patient centered, physician led clinical excellence initiatives designed to reduce avoidable clinical variation through transparent review of clinical performance data, analysis and application of best clinical evidence and practices, collaborative dialogue amongst hospital staff, medical staff, and clinical leaders.
- Including: Acute Myocardial Infarction, Sepsis, Hip and Spine, Stroke, Heart Failure, Pneumonia, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
Clinical Safety Improvement Program (CSIP) which implements patient safety initiatives aimed to reduce the number of adverse events reduce patient harm and promote and further develop the patient safety culture.
- Including: Development and training of High Reliability Organizational expertise, Evidence Based Care management, IV Smart Pump Safety, and Safe Procedural and Surgical Verification.

Compassionate and qualified healthcare team

HCA South Atlantic Division relies upon industry practice when developing staffing plans that reflect the needs of the patient population and match the skills and experience of the staff. We implement staffing levels that are flexible and account for changes; including intensity of patient's needs, the number of admissions, discharges and transfers during a shift, level of experience of nursing staff, layout of the unit, and availability of resources (ancillary staff, technology etc.) to ensure appropriate number and mix of nursing staff which is critical to the delivery of quality patient care.

Tactics to ensure adequate and competent staffing include a variety of programs and business relationships with local colleges and staffing agencies. Examples of such include a comprehensive in-house training program (StaRN), clinical alliances with local nursing schools, and a business relationship with Parallon Workforce Solutions.