Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente has recognized three projects across the system that advanced quality and patient safety through innovative practices to transform care.
The projects received either the James A. Vohs Award for Quality or the David M. Lawrence Patient Safety Award. Both awards were created to spark a passion for continuous improvement among Kaiser Permanente workers and encourage the sharing of best practices across the organization.
"These awards celebrate Kaiser Permanente's unwavering commitment to delivering high quality care for our more than 10 million members," said Patrick Courneya, MD, executive vice president and CMO of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals.
Highlighted below are the three winning projects.
1. Kaiser Permanente workers in Southern California developed an online tool to help patients change the way they track and control their own health. The tool proactively identifies individual care needs and provides information on health education resources. Users of the tool were 60 percent more likely than non-users to have a Pap smear and four times more likely to get a colorectal cancer screening.
2. Kaiser Permanente Sunnyside Medical Center in Clackamas, Ore., designed a new approach to treat patients with sepsis who are otherwise stable and can be successfully treated outside of the intensive care unit. The approach helped reduce ICU admissions by 50 percent without reducing the quality level of patient outcomes.
3. Kaiser Permanente workers in Southern California conducted a review of diabetic retinopathy diagnosis rates and found a substantial number of diabetic patients with retinopathy were either undiagnosed or untreated. In response to the review findings, experts began reviewing retinal photographs to identify patients who require referral to a specialist, as well as those who need to be closely monitored to avoid the potentially vision-threatening complication of diabetes.
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