NBHN’s Women’s Health Service Receives Prominent National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems Safety Net Patient Safety Award
NAPH Bestows Prestigious Safety Net Patient Safety Award for Labor and Delivery Initiative
Jul 20, 2011
(l-r): The Women’s Health Service team
lead by Susan Gross, MD, Chairperson
(front row, center) and Wendy Wilcox,
MD, Vice Chairperson (second row,
3rd from left).
The North Bronx Healthcare Network’s Women’s Health Service recently received the prestigious National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (NAPH) Safety Net Patient Safety Award for its Reducing Adverse Outcomes on Labor and Delivery initiative. The NAPH’s Safety Net Awards Ceremony recognizes those organizations which have been recognized for best practices by implementing the best safety initiatives using evidence-based guidelines. The initiative was designed to reduce occurrences of certain adverse perinatal events, such as the incidence of Erb’s palsy, that can be devastating to newborns and their families.
The NBHN Women’s Health Service joined forces with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, an organization which partners with healthcare providers around the world to establish and support ways to provide safe and effective care. It then developed a process to analyze key labor and delivery data, and identified certain risk factors strongly associated with these adverse outcomes. It then implemented a number of interventions which included a customized protocol for use of Oxytocin during labor, study cycles to test changes and monitor compliance with the protocol, and TeamSTEPPS training for staff.
TeamSTEPPS is a toolkit of evidence-based methods designed by the Department of Defense and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Its goal is to provide better, safer healthcare through improved communication and teamwork skills among healthcare professionals.
“The Women’s Health Service team has remained committed to doing everything possible to maximize a safe delivery,” Susan Gross, MD, FRCS(C), FACOG, FACMG, Chairperson, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, NBHN. “Our initiative has reduced deliveries complicated by shoulder dystocia, decreased severe Erb’s Palsy cases, and reduced adverse patient occurrences overall, while maintaining cesarean section rates well below the national average. We are proud that the NAPH has recognized our efforts to create a safe environment for our patients.”
In addition, the NBHN’s Women’s Health Service was also recently awarded the Health Association of New York State (HANYS) 2011 Pinnacle Award for Quality and Patient Safety in the Multi-Entity or System, another distinguished achievement recognizing NCBH’s Labor and Delivery units as one of the safest labor floors in the country. Its team of dedicated physicians and midwifery and nursing staff have enabled NCBH to maintain one of the lowest cesarean section rates in New York.
About HHC
The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) is a $6.7 billion integrated healthcare delivery system with its own 420,000 member health plan, MetroPlusHealth, and is the largest municipal healthcare organization in the country. HHC serves 1.4 million New Yorkers every year and more than 475,000 are uninsured. HHC provides medical, mental health and substance abuse services through its 11 acute care hospitals, five skilled nursing facilities, six large diagnostic and treatment centers and more than 70 community based clinics. HHC Health and Home Care also provides in-home services for New Yorkers. HHC was the 2008 recipient of the National Quality Forum and The Joint Commission’s John M. Eisenberg Award for Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality. For more information, visit www.nychhc.org/hhc or find us on facebook.com/NYCHealthSystem or twitter.com/NYCHealthSystem.