MDNews - San Antonio

It is what drives us to be nothing less than excellent." The Methodist journey to excellence is based on the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria. The Baldrige Award, established by Congress in 1987, was envisioned as a standard of excel- lence that would help U.S. organizations achieve world-class quality. The award is based on seven key areas. For the last five years, Methodist has worked through teams of doctors, nurses and other clinical staff organized by service lines to improve care. Physicians' involvement is critical to the journey. Each clinical service line is co-managed by a physician leader and an administra- tive leader. Working together, these teams have created protocols that have resulted in efficiencies of physician and staff time, cost savings and patient flow. Using the Ba ldrige template has a llowed Met hod ist Hea lt hca re to learn from successes achieved in other industries. It has encouraged hospital leadership to embrace new approaches, learn a new language, and grow pro- fessiona lly by sha ring experiences with others. In 2013, Methodist Hospital received the Bill Aston Award for Quality for innovations in quality, based on the Methodist Hospital Cardio-Hospitalist Program and clinical outcomes. Met ho d ist Hea lt hc a re re cent ly r e c e i v e d t h e Te x a s Aw a r d f o r Performance Excellence (TAPE) from the Quality Texas Foundation, repre- senting the highest level of quality an organization can achieve in the state of Texas. The award is based on the Malcolm Baldrige criteria. Methodist Healthcare is the first healthcare system in South Texas to receive the TAPE award since the inception of the award in 1994. "This award is a validation of the hard work our employees, physicians, volunteers and board members have accomplished over the past years in Methodist Healthcare's journey to excel- lence," Wesolowski says. Here are a few of the many milestones that Methodist Healthcare has reached along its journey to excellence: + Evidenced-based care measures (com- posite core measures) are in the top 10 percent of the nation for those care interventions known to improve patient mortality and complications. + The Methodist Healthcare in-hospital mortality is only 50 percent of what is expected, given the severity of ill- ness levels of system patients. For Methodist, this translates into 530 fewer patients dying each year than should be expected, given the patients' risk factors. + The Patient Safety Indicator (PSI) 90 is a composite score of several in-hospital patient complications. Methodist Healthcare scores signifi- cantly lower (better), at 0.46, than the national average of 0.6, indicating a much lower hospital complication rate than most hospitals. + Met ho d ist Hea lt hc a re's qu a lit y initiatives include a reduction in hospital-acquired conditions (infec- tions, etc.) and a reduction in heart failure readmissions. Methodist Excellence recognizes that best practices save lives. When people see real results — patients receiving better care, doctors using their time more effectively and staff experiencing increased job satisfaction — their com- mitment to excellence grows stronger and leads to continuous improvement throughout the system. At Methodist Healthcare System, the goal is not just to be the best in San Antonio, but to be the best in the nation. For m ore inf or m at ion , lo g on to SA Health.com, San Antonio's health and wellnessresource. ■ KEN DAVIS, MD, serves as Chief Medical Officer of San Antonio Methodist Healthcare, an eight-hospital system with more than 2,000 beds and 3,000 physicians on staff. Methodist was honored with the 2012 Texas Gold Quality Award from the Texas Medical Foundation, the 2013 Bill Aston Award for Quality from the Texas Hospital Association, and the Texas Award for Performance Excellence (TAPE) Baldrige Award in 2014. Prior to working with Methodist, Dr. Davis served for 16 years as the chief medical officer at North Mississippi Health Services, a six-hospital health system in Northeast Mississippi. The flagship hospital, North Mississippi Medical Center, is a 750-bed tertiary referral center, the largest rural hospital in the country and the winner of the American Hospital Association Quest for Quality Prize in 2005 and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 2006 and again in 2012. Dr. Davis was in private internal medi- cine and geriatrics practice for 20 years. He received his medical degree and served his internal medicine residency at the University of Mississippi, followed by fellowship training in geriatrics at Harvard Medical School and a Masters in Health Policy and Management from Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Davis is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a Six Sigma Black Belt. M D N E W S . CO M ■ MD NEWS San Antonio | 7

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