It started with a revealing study of hospital error and led to a
breakthrough effort in medical center care and patient safety.
Now, The University of Texas System health institutions are formulating
some of the best practices to reduce mistakes, make hospitals more
efficient and help save more lives.
Prompted in part by the 1999 Institute of Medicine report titled "To Err
is Human," a study that pointed to shortcomings in America's health care
system – and partly by efforts such as the Institute for Healthcare
Improvement's "Saving 100,000 Lives" campaign, which seeks to enhance
patient care – The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in
2004 launched a series of initiatives aimed at improving health care
there and at other UT health institutions.
UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas
The efforts could also help medical institutions across the country.
"The quality of care in the American health care system leaves a great
deal to be desired," said Dr. Kenneth Shine, The UT System's executive
vice chancellor for health affairs. "On average, a patient has about a
55 percent chance of receiving optimum treatment for whatever
condition he or she has."
After two years of a collaborative effort to improve care for critically
ill patients, officials at
UT M. D. Anderson have reported dramatic
results in patient care and operating efficiencies.
One initiative – aimed at reducing the incidence of cardiac arrest among
patients in the medical center's Intensive Care Unit – resulted in a 50
percent drop in the number of cases, said Dr. Sherrie Martin, vice president
of quality management at UT M. D. Anderson. Martin was appointed as the
Chancellor's Health Fellow in 2004 to launch a spate of improvement programs.
To achieve the reduction in cardiac arrests, Martin said ICUs at several
institutions, including some with the UT System, shared their best practices
in treating cardiac patients as well as data from studies of acute changes in
those patients prior to their experiencing heart attacks. Knowing that 85
percent of cardiac patients experienced symptoms up to eight hours prior to
going into arrest, nurses were able to recognize potential signs of
deterioration and summon quick response medical teams to prevent the patient
from experiencing cardiac arrest.
"We calculated that these interventions saved 12 lives in seven months,"
Martin said.
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