February 2009
QHN Interviews Ms. Clara Ballantine, Safer Healthcare Now! Ontario Node Safety and Improvement Advisor on how healthcare organizations participating in the surgical site infection prevention intervention of Safer Healthcare Now! will improve patient safety?
Quality Healthcare Network: Thank you for agreeing to speak to members today about Safer Healthcare Now! (SHN) Surigical Site Infection (SSI) prevention is one of the ten SHN interventions. Why is reducing SSIs an important patient safety issue?
Clara Ballantine: SSI is one of the biggest contributers to hospital morbidity, and the second most common adverse event in hospitals, so it is clearly an important patient safety issue. In Canada, SSI contributes to longer lengths of stay, increased readmission rates, a higher cost to the system and results in poorer patient outcomes. People can die from surgical site infections. What is astounding is that an estimated 40 to 60% of these infections are preventable.
Quality Healthcare Network: What advantage do organizations enrolled in SHN with established SSI teams have over organizations that do not?
Clara Ballantine: For those organizations that already have established SHN SSI teams, data shows that 75% of these teams are administering prophylactic antibiotics within 60 minutes of the surgical incision. These teams have more than doubled their success rate with antibiotic prophylaxis since enrolling in SHN and working on the SSI prevention intervention. Those organizations that have enrolled in SHN and have active SSI teams are truly ahead of organizations that are just getting started.
Quality Healthcare Network: Will public reporting result in better patient care?
Clara Ballantine: It may. There is more to it than simply reporting your rates. Healthcare organizations need to use their own data to identify areas that need improving and also to use this data to determine the impact of their changes.
Being enrolled in a community of practice change like SHN drives organizations to focus on improvement which is different from simply reporting your rates. If you have a clinical team established that provides care everyday, and the team is using the data to make improvements in the care they provide, then this will result in better patient care and outcomes. I think public reporting, coupled with a quality improvement driver like SHN, is an effective strategy for Ontario and positions this province as an international leader in patient safety.
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About the Quality Healthcare Network:The Quality Healthcare Network (QHN) is a non-profit organization dedicated to fostering the development and adoption of best practices by its members through education and shared improvement projects. Established in 1992 as the CQI Network, the network grew into the Quality Healthcare Network in 2003, a member-based organization, which now exceeds over 70 healthcare organizations that share the courage to move beyond status quo, inspired towards excellence in care and service. In 2005, the network became the Ontario lead of the Safer Healthcare Now! campaign, an ambitious pan-Canadian effort aimed at reducing the number of injuries and deaths related to adverse events, such as infections and medication incidents. For more information about QHN, visit the network website at www.qhn.ca
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