Sue Pearson, the quality and risk manager of Black River Memorial Hospital (BRMH), has won the first annual Dr John S. Coldiron, MD, Performance Improvement Innovation award.
BRMH has seen a 27% improvement in its Just Culture scores in just two years, as measured by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Culture Survey.
BRMH initiated a program for managers that trained them in the use of Just Culture tools, to ensure that employees can expect the same treatment for the same incident no matter who the manager.
"This is essential to the open reporting of errors, which is critical to performance improvement," said Pearson. Under the direction of Pearson, the hospital modified its incident reporting system, Occurrence Insight, to include a question about the use of Just Culture tools in almost every incident review. In addition, it created several reports to track completion time of incident reviews.
"The selection committee was very impressed with the innovative use of the Occurrence Insight reporting system to support the use of Just Culture tools and with the measurable results," said Gita Afshar, president of Insight Health Solutions.
The award is named in honor of Dr John S. Coldiron, whose vision of software tools to support healthcare performance improvement guided the creation of the original Insight Health Solutions software more than a decade ago. As vice president and chief medical management officer at Insight Health Solutions, Dr Coldiron continues to ensure that their products address current needs in healthcare quality.
Black River Hospital, risk manager, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, software
