The following are examples of safe practice recommendations issued by the National Quality Forum. For each safe practice, we let you know about our self-assessment of our performance at the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics.

 

A subset of these Safe Practices forms the basis for The Leapfrog Group's annual Hospital Survey. To compile the Leapfrog Group's annual Hospital Survey, Leapfrog gathers and reports information on hospital quality and patient safety efforts to help patients make informed decisions about where to receive hospital care.

 

In the table below, a blue checkmark indicates that we're meeting the standards.

 

Safe Practices (as identified by the National Quality Forum)	How We're Doing
Create a Culture of Safety that encourages the reporting of any circumstance that has the potential to threaten the patient safety, with a goal of improving healthcare systems.	In Progress
All patients in general intensive care units should be managed by physicians who have special training and certification in critical care medicine.	In Progress
Pharmacists should actively participate in the medication use process. This includes being available for consultation with prescribers on medication orders, dispensing, administration and monitoring of medications.
Verbal Orders should be written down and immediately read back to the prescriber to verify the accuracy of what was heard.
Implement a Computerized Physician Order Entry System.	In Progress
Implement protocols to prevent wrong-site, wrong-patient procedures.
Use evidence-based guidelines to prevent central venous catheter-associated blood stream infections.
Implement a standardized protocol to prevent the mislabeling of radiographs.
Ensure the written documentation of the patient's preference for life-sustaining treatment is prominently displayed in the patient's medical record.
Specify an explicit protocol to be used to ensure an adequate level of nursing staff based upon the patient case mix and levels of experience and training of the hospital's nursing staff.
Use standardized abbreviations and dose designations.
Patient care information is transmitted in a timely and clearly understandable form to the patient's current health care providers who need that information to provide care.
Evaluate each patient undergoing elective surgery for risk of an acute ischemic cardiac event during surgery, and provide prophylactic treatment of high-risk patients with beta blockers.
Dispense medications in unit-dose whenever possible.
Implement explicit organizational policies and procedures, including documented risk assessment and prevention plans for all patients at risk of developing Deep Vein Thrombosis or Venous Thromboembolism.	In Progress
Standardize the methods for labeling, packaging and storing medications.
Keep workspaces where medications are prepared clean, orderly, well lit, and free of clutter, distraction and noise.
Identify all high alert drugs such as chemotherapy agents, anticoagulants, concentrated parenteral electrolytes, general anesthetics, insulin, etc.
Use evidence-based guidelines to prevent pressure ulcers**
Decontaminate hands with alcohol hand gel or by washing with a disinfectant soap prior to and after direct contact with the patient or objects immediately around the patient.

 

 

** Note: The Alliance for Quality Healthcare in Madison, Wisconsin, publishes a report on an annual basis comparing the cost and quality of area health care services. As UW Hospital and Clinics is a quaternary academic medical center, it receives many seriously ill patients in transfer from other facilities. We have advised The Alliance their report of the frequency of pressure ulcers in our facility as "worse than expected" is misleading and inaccurate. Based upon our internal case review and analysis of coded data, 74% of pressure ulcers at UW Hospital and Clinics are present at the time a patient is admitted to our facility.