In 2007 Florida Hospital Zephyrhills and all the 38 Adventist Health System hospitals partnered with Johns Hopkins University Quality and Safety Research group to improve patient safety by eliminating central-line associated blood stream infections (CLABSI) in the intensive care units (ICU).
The Johns Hopkins group did their keystone study with all the hospitals in Michigan in 2005. After the study the hospitals reported zero blood stream infections; saving 44 lives, decreased hospital days by 3,000 days and savings of over 10.5 million dollars, statewide.
Florida Hospital Zephyrhills began the study in October of 2007. Since October the ICU has had 0.0 central-line infections and the CVICU, cardiovascular intensive care unit, has been at 0.0 since July of 2007. The national rate benchmark is 3.1 set by the National Healthcare Safety Network formerly the National Nososomial Infections Surveillance System. This rate of 0.0 has been achievable through teamwork amongst nursing and medical staff.
The goals of the study are to:
- Eliminate CLABSI in ICUs
- Improve patient safety
- Improve teamwork and culture amongst the clinical team
- Identify the causal relationship between internal processes and CLABSI
Florida Hospital Zephyrhills has a stellar team working together to achieve and exceed the study goals. Dr. Joseph Hubaykah, is the physician champion and Monica Wills, Director of ICU/PCU is the nursing leader for the Johns Hopkins study. Wills reports that “the critical care physicians and nursing staff of the ICU and CVICU are committed to the life-saving practices demonstrated in this study. All of our team members have come together to discuss the best practices demonstrated in the John Hopkins study and have been actively working to implement each of these best practices.
To date we have standardized the Central Line Insertion Cart to insure that all of the necessary items are available to the physicians and nurses during line insertion and dressing changes; we have implemented Daily Interdisciplinary Rounds on the critical care patients to insure that all members of the care team are aware of the individual patient’s specific needs and to set individual specific goals to improve care and decrease time in the intensive care unit.
Our mission at Florida Hospital Zephyrhills is to extend the healing ministry of Christ by providing quality healthcare. If you have questions about CLABSI or the Johns Hopkins study please contact us at (813) 715-6625.