Roughly 350 hospitals participating in Premier's quality improvement collaborative performed better in reducing inpatient mortality over a six-year period than non-participating hospitals, according to a study published in the Journal of Patient Safety.
Premier alliance hospitals participating in the QUEST collaborative used Premier's improvement methodology to enhance quality, efficiency, safety and transparency. The study compared the mortality rates at alliance hospitals participating in the initiative with non-participating alliance hospitals. In total, more than 600 U.S. hospitals were examined.
Researchers found the participating QUEST hospitals reduced inpatient mortality rates up to 10 percent more than non-QUEST hospitals over the six-year period between 2006 and 2011.
Highlighted below are five additional findings from the study:
- QUEST hospitals avoided approximately 160,000 inpatient hospital deaths during the six years studied.
- QUEST hospitals' reduced sepsis-related deaths by 22 percent.
- Mortality rates for three other conditions — heart failure, respiratory infections and stroke — each decreased by six percent at hospitals participating in the collaborative.
- Reductions in costs, readmissions and patient harm saved QUEST hospitals roughly $13.2 billion since 2008.
- Since 2011, participating hospitals prevented 55,800 readmissions and 21,700 instances of patient harm, including healthcare-associated infections