The J. D. Thompson Award for Excellence – winning and more!

Every year just one hospital earns the Connecticut Hospital Association award for excellence - the John D. Thompson Award for Excellence in the Delivery of Healthcare Through the Use of Data.

As most of you know, Danbury Hospital was the proud recipient of the award this year, given to the cardiovascular teams at both Danbury and New Milford for improving the treatment of patients with ST Elevation Myocardial Infarctions. Through a dedicated, sophisticated, rigorous and team based effort, they were able to reduce the Door To Balloon time to less than 90 minutes (the absolute benchmark) in EVERY patient---any time, from any location. Clearly much to be proud of and much to congratulate.

But we also had nine other high quality applications for that award from Danbury! Every one represents a commitment to quality and better patient outcomes through dedicated teamwork. Taken together, it says something remarkable about our people and our culture and our mission. Certainly our patients are the real beneficiaries.

Here’s a quick summary. Space won’t allow me to give all the remarkable details or to credit all the contributors. Both would require many pages. I will list the author in case any of you want to contact them for additional information.

• “Stroke Care and 30 day Readmission Rates” (Heather Duggan) Through careful review and process redesign, the readmission rate for stroke patients was reduced by almost 50%, from 17% to 9%.
• “A patient-centered palliative care consult service for identified high risk patients resulting in fewer unscheduled 30-day readmissions” (Damanjeet Chaubey) Creating this program and follow-up after discharge resulted in a reduction in readmission rates in a targeted population from 24% to 5%.
• “Improving the Utilization of Ionized Calcium Blood Tests and Intravenous Calcium Supplements in a Community Teaching Hospital” (Sal Sena) The team dramatically reduced both, reducing cost and improving quality through avoidance of unnecessary interventions.
• “The development and implementation of a ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) program in the adult critical care units” (Eric Jimenez) Through teamwork and “bundles of care” the team reduced the VAP rate from unacceptable to ZERO.
• “Collaborative Respiratory Care Protocols to optimize patient care” (Sue Albino) The Respiratory Services team and pulmonologists reduced charges by 13% while improving access to care for COPD patients through better organization and planning.
• “Sweet Deliver”—a community wide, standardized program to improve birth outcomes in women with gestational diabetes” (Matthew Kim) Multiple outcome improvements noted in mothers and babies with great patient satisfaction.
• “The use of fall data to promote a standardized and coordinated fall prevention strategy” (Moreen Donahue) 50% reduction in inpatient fall frequency!
• “Mandatory participation in an influenza vaccination program” (Laurie Brentlinger) Moving from a voluntary program to a mandatory participation program (without actual mandatory vaccination) improved compliance rates for actual vaccination from about 77% to 93%. ---doctors too!
• “Blood Culture Utilization in Pneumonia” Joann Petrini This often unnecessary and costly intervention was reduced from 68% to <20% through education, research and guideline development.

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