MA Hospitals

The Worksite Wellness Council of Massachusetts has announced the winners of its annual WorkWell Massachusetts Awards, recognizing employers that show outstanding performance in worksite health promotion, which includes programs to address workers’ physical and mental health, social connectedness, community involvement, and financial security. The application process for the awards asked empl...» Full Article

Take a look at South Shore Medical Center’s new state-of-the-art facility, located in the heart of Quincy Center at 1495 Hancock Street. ...» Full Article

Cambridge Health Alliance undertook an Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality-sponsored 15-month safety improvement program to reduce infections in the ICU at its Cambridge and Everett hospitals. The effort – involving an assessment of potential problems, increased staff education, use of proven best practices, leadership buy-in and more – resulted in a dramatic reduction in urinary tra...» Full Article

Big news from Cape Cod Healthcare! Vision 2022, announced on the eve of the 100th anniversary of Cape Cod Hospital, includes a new 6-story patient care tower. Read more… ...» Full Article

Hebrew SeniorLife and Brown University have received a five-year $53.4 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to lead a comprehensive, nationwide effort to address Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. NIA is a division of the National Institutes for Health.  The funding will support the creation of a research incubator or “collaboratory”, bringing together 30...» Full Article

This is community healthcare in action. NEW BEDFORD — Southcoast Health has announced the recipients of its Community Benefits Impact Opportunity program grants for Fiscal Year 2019. These annual, competitive grants address unmet health needs in communities on the SouthCoast, according to a press release. “We are passionate about improving the health of our patients and our communities,...» Full Article

MHA applauds and are proud of Sturdy Memorial Hospital to have been recognized by the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association for meeting the latest research-based standards for stroke care. We're a dual-award winner, receiving both the STEMI Referring Center Gold Achievement and Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus/Gold awards for our high quality and timely care of stroke patients! ...» Full Article

Worksite Wellness Council of Massachusetts (WWCMA) announced the winners of its annual WorkWell Massachusetts Awards program aimed to recognize Massachusetts employers for their exemplary work in worksite health promotion. Five of the six Gold Award recipients were MA hospitals. As well as of only two Innovator Awards, one was a MA hospital. The Worksite Wellness Council of Massachusetts (WWCMA...» Full Article

Caregivers at Boston Medical Center (BMC) have released a study outlining how the hospital’s Addiction Consult Service (ACS) may be making a significant dent in the problem of inpatients with substance use disorder (SUD) relapsing into addiction – and being readmitted – shortly after discharge. Numerous studies have shown that many inpatients (15% by one Massachusetts study) have an activ...» Full Article

Caregivers at Boston Medical Center (BMC) have released a study outlining how the hospital’s Addiction Consult Service (ACS) may be making a significant dent in the problem of inpatients with substance use disorder (SUD) relapsing into addiction – and being readmitted – shortly after discharge. Numerous studies have shown that many inpatients (15% by one Massachusetts study) have an activ...» Full Article

Newton-Wellesley Hospital’s Bert Thurlo-Walsh, R.N., MM, CPHQ, Assoc. CQO/V.P., Patient Experience & Medical Staff Services and Dr. Janet C. Larson, Chief Quality & Experience Officer were invited to the Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET) Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN) The Journey Ahead national conference in San Diego last month to present their hospital's ...» Full Article

In 2013, during a period of significant institutional growth, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital–Needham (BID–Needham) began an organization-wide effort to enhance its commitment to patient safety, employee engagement, and patient and staff satisfaction. As a result if its efforts, BID-Needham’s scores on the AHRQ Culture of Safety Survey rose to the 98th percentile rank within one year of im...» Full Article

Leadership rounding at the bedside - the process where nurse leaders, administrators, and others talk directly with staff and patients about care and services - is a best practice in most hospitals, yet it comes with many challenges. It can be time consuming and difficult to standardize. When rounding is done using a pen and paper, how can care teams compile trend data in the department and across...» Full Article

Imagine you're a newborn, contentedly relaxing in a dark and warm place, bathed in amniotic fluid, when suddenly - BAM! - you're out in the world, surrounded by strange people, who are smiling and cooing at you but who are, nonetheless, very, very strange. "It's the greatest adventure of their lives," says Cheryl McInerney, R.N., IBCLC, a lactation consultant at Cambridge Health Alliance. "And ...» Full Article

The US Department of Health and Human Services has named Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center among the first-ever awardees in the National Awards Program to Recognize Progress in Eliminating Healthcare-Associated Infections. The awards focus on central line infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia, two of the deadliest and most expensive hospital-acquired infections. Preventing hospital-a...» Full Article

One of only 26 national Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovations Grants Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center will receive $4.9 million from the highly competitive first round of Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation Grants, to launch a Post-Acute Care Transitions (PACT) program designed to improve patient outcomes and prevent avoidable cost in the high-risk 30-day period following acu...» Full Article

Beverly Hospital in Massachusetts has significantly reduced the rate of patient falls on its units by implementing a comprehensive fall prevention program, WCVB Boston reports. According to a recent state report, 70 percent of serious injuries in Massachusetts hospitals were caused by falls, with older adults proving particularly vulnerable. As a result, preventing falls has become a top priori...» Full Article

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center will collaborate in two additional federal innovation awards announced last week: one with Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center as part of the High Value Healthcare Collaborative (HVHC) and one with Mayo Clinic. These awards were announced as part of the second and final round of Innovation Grants awarded by the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovat...» Full Article

Three nurses at Boston Medical Center are taking a proactive rather than reactive approach to skin care.  The skin team RNs - two full time and one part time - constantly emphasize the importance of assessing patients' skin from head to toe. Because ongoing documentation of pressure ulcers is necessary to ensure Medicare reimbursement, the nurses review with staff on a regular basis how to pro...» Full Article

Hospitals around the country are grappling with the issue of alarm fatigue. The concern is that the constant noise of equipment alarms on hospital inpatient floors is so overwhelming that nurses can become desensitized, thereby creating potential patient safety risks. This issue is so pervasive that the Joint Commission--the accrediting body for hospitals nationwide--is implementing a new national...» Full Article

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today announced significant gains in hospitals' efforts to prevent healthcare-associated infections in 2010. These include a 33% reduction in central line-associated bloodstream infections, 18% reduction in healthcare-associated invasive MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), 10% reduction in surgical-site infections, and 7% reduction in ...» Full Article

In the past eight quarters since the end of 2007, Cooley Dickinson Hospital - a 140-bed facility in Northampton, Massachusetts - has had three quarters with zero incidents of pressure ulcers (bed sores). It's impressive because even under the best circumstances, bedsores "happen." That is, patients enter hospitals with their skin severely compromised from long illnesses. Or their treatment is s...» Full Article

In America's hospitals, approximately one in 20 patients will contract a hospital-acquired infection (HAI). At Cooley Dickinson Hospital last year, one in 129 patients got an HAI. Now, those better odds of avoiding an infection at Cooley Dickinson have improved even further, as the hospital has documented a groundbreaking 82 percent drop in one type of infection, Clostridium difficile (C. diff), a...» Full Article

Falls in hospitals happen. Recognizing the issue, the Joint Commission has stepped in to require hospitals to implement falls-reduction programs as a requirement of accreditation, and the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services will no longer reimburse hospitals for the cost of care that results from inpatient falls. Heywood Hospital in Gardner, Mass. - a 134 bed community hospital - has assembled a team to deal with the falls issue, which at Heywood is made even more difficult ty the presence of an in-facility geriatric psychiatric unit.

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Over six consecutive months in 2013, Jordan Hospital in Plymouth has not recorded a single catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI) in its Critical Care Center- an impressive statistic that has required intensive, shift-by-shift persistence by caregiving teams throughout the hospital and a wholesale change in the hospital's culture. By eliminating incidences of CAUTI, a common infect...» Full Article

There is always a lot of talk about the power of teamwork and successful teams yet there is little talk of what actually defines a great team. This 2011 article in Advance for Nurses discusses how nurses on a med/surg floor at Lawrence General Hospital improved patient safety through making hourly "rounds with purpose"....» Full Article

Jordan Hospital in Plymouth, Mass., has undertaken an innovative strategy to deal with patient falls, which is a common problem that occurs just about everywhere that care is provided -- from hospitals to homes. People who are ill, recovering from surgery, on new medications - to name just a few of numerous reasons - often fall down, causing serious injury. It's a phenomenon that has caused all...» Full Article

As the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) continue to provide less payment for hospital acquired pressure ulcers, increased demands are placed on nurses to reduce the number of patients who acquire these conditions. As pressure-ulcer incidence rates continue to rise, more hospitals are implementing intervention and prevention programs in order to combat pressure ulcer occurrence an...» Full Article

For MetroWest Medical Center, a 319-bed regional healthcare system with hospital campuses and outpatient facilities in the adjacent towns of Framingham and Natick, Mass., seven was just the right number of tactics needed to put its outpatient scores where they belonged - at the top. In fact, throughout fiscal year 2011, MetroWest's outpatient scores have consistently remained above the 96th percen...» Full Article

Catheter Associated Urinary Tract Infections (CAUTIs) are an often preventable healthcare- associated infection (HAI) common in hospitals across the country.  These infections can be a serious complication for patients, can increase the time they are hospitalized and add to the cost of care. On occasion, antibiotic treatment of CAUTIs can also pose potential health risks for the patient. PLAN: I...» Full Article

According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), "medication-related error … is one of the most common types of error, substantial numbers of individuals are affected, and it accounts for a sizable increase in health care costs."*  In order to decrease the potential for medication-related errors, Newton-Wellesley Hospital launched a major patient safety initiative in 2009 - the implementation of a...» Full Article

Reducing falls and the injuries that arise from such falls is a major goal of Massachusetts hospitals, which report their falls data through PatientCareLink. And our hospitals are developing the best practices, innovative strategies, and measurement tools that other states are using to address the issue. In the Vol. 304, No. 17, November 3, 2010, issue of JAMA - the Journal of the American Medi...» Full Article

The results are in from Partners HealthCare's Medicare demonstration project that was conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).In August, 2006, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) funded the MGH and the hospital's physician organization to launch the Care Management Program at MGH, one of six demonstration projects nationwide. During the three-year demonstration, the MGH develop...» Full Article

In 2011, MetroWest HomeCare & Hospice, in partnership with MetroWest Medical Center, initiated a strategic and evidence based effort to reduce their emergent care visits and acute care hospitalization rates. The effort was initiated with the formation in November 2011 of MetroWest's Re-Admission Intervention Strategy Council (RISC).  The RISC includes representatives from management, nursi...» Full Article

By John C. Richmond, MD and Maureen Spencer, RN, M.Ed, CIC This article is reprinted from the August 2010 First Do No Harm newsletter produced by the Quality and Patient Safety Division of the Massachusetts  Board of Registration in Medicine A post-operative infection can be a devastating complication for any patient. This is particularly true in elective orthopedic surgery, where the patient t...» Full Article

Southcoast Health System's well thought-out program to reduce patient "sitters" - the individuals who spend time with patients to ensure that they do not fall and injure themselves - makes sense financially for the system, but has its genesis in improving patient safety and strengthening the caregiving team."They're not just sitting there. They are now interacting with the patients" says Joyce D...» Full Article

Since its physicians began using a new Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) system when prescribing drugs and after it set up a peer-review panel that assessed medication errors, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital - Cape Cod in Sandwich has reduced Adverse Drug Events (ADEs) by 61%.

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At Tufts Medical Center (Tufts MC) in downtown Boston, the small team that was assembled to reduce, or eliminate, CLABSI has had remarkable success. Since 2010, through a daily effort that has involved the hospital's most senior leadership, nurses at the bedside, and assistive personnel, Tufts Medical Center reduced central line-associated bloodstream infections by 80%. In some of its units, Tufts MC has had 600 and 800 CLABSI-free days.

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A Focus on Infection Prevention Two hospitals within the UMass Memorial Health Care system each received the 2009 Betsy Lehman Patient Safety Recognition Award from the Betsy Lehman Center for Patient Safety and Medical Error Reduction, a program established under the Executive Office of Health and Human Services and housed within the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. UMass Memorial Me...» Full Article

Tool used to help engage patients in their own care. One of the biggest challenges with managing diabetes is motivating patients to take an appropriately active role in their health.  To help meet this challenge, UMass Memorial Medical Center has launched a pilot program to test an innovative diabetes management "scorecard." The scorecard contains the patient's diabetes-related health infor...» Full Article

Executive Treatment Urged to Drive Down Infection RatesBy Jane Sherwin Culture change requires top leadership to get engaged, collaborate with staffReducing catheter-related bloodstream infections remains a challenge for many hospitals. In a recent survey by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, 40 percent of respondents said their hospitals had been targeting ...» Full Article

 An estimated 85 percent of hospital-acquired infections are due to organisms carried on the hands of personnel. As a result, Winchester Hospital has launched a hospital-wide hand hygiene competency for all employees in an effort to save patients from avoidable harm.The competency includes reciting three opportunities for hand hygiene, communicating three infection prevention strategies (stayin...» Full Article

A variety of different measures all point to one inescapable fact: readmissions of Medicare patients at Massachusetts hospitals are steadily decreasing, according to a new MHA analysis. Statistics over the past decade show that Massachusetts hospitals, as well as hospitals nationwide, over the past decade at first had incremental improvements in readmissions before experiencing a significant dr...» Full Article

The percentage of patients admitted to a hospital with a mental health condition - either as a primary or a secondary diagnosis - is rising and often these patients experience delirium, alcohol withdrawal and suicide harm (DASH), which put them at an increased risk for higher-than-average readmission rates. In a new report in the July 2015 edition of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and ...» Full Article

Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) and Hallmark Health, in collaboration with Somerville Cambridge Elder Services and Mystic Valley Elder Services, are among the top performers in an innovative national pilot program to reduce hospital readmission rates. The four organizations, known collectively as the Mystic Valley Community-Based Organization, joined 71 other community-based organizations (CB...» Full Article