I am proud to announce that Stony Brook University Hospital received the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) 2019 Pinnacle Award for Quality and Patient Safety at the HANYS Membership Conference on June 19. Presented annually, the Pinnacle Award recognizes organizations that are playing a leading role in promoting improvements in healthcare delivery in New York State. A panel of expert judges from across the country review all nominations, and only four healthcare organization are selected from across the state in recognition of their outstanding initiatives that enhanced patient care.
SBUH received the award in the category of System or Hospital with More than 500 Beds for its initiative, “Quality Diabetes Care: Creating a Culture of Excellence through Innovation.” This initiative began in 2015 with the primary goal of transforming the way that nearly 7,000 patients with diabetes were identified, monitored and cared for during their inpatient stay. The first step was the formation of a multidisciplinary diabetes advisory committee, to focus on diabetes care as a high priority. Next, a workgroup was developed to focus on the implementation of three major pillars – “glucometric” defined dashboard monitors for patients with diabetes and associated risk indicators; standardized insulin order entry; and system-wide education. Successful results include:
- An institutional culture of excellence and awareness was established regarding the care of patients with diabetes through standardized insulin order entry and administration, supported from leadership to the unit level.
- Development of an innovative, automated Tableau dashboard monitor to track real-time and historic glucometrics for patients with diabetes, including clinical indicators, outcome metrics, and physician – unit – service level care reports.
- Significant improvements in system-wide diabetes outcomes, including a reduced length of stay index from 1.22 to 1.06, decreased readmission rates from 16.82 to 12.99 and increased hbA1c monitoring from 57% to 88%, decreased POC testing by over 5,000 tests per month.
- You can learn more about the program and the results by clicking on the following link: https://hanys.wistia.com/medias/pixqqyzf43
In addition to the HANYS Pinnacle Award, this program has been recognized nationally for excellence and innovation. It was selected by America’s Essential Hospitals (AEH) as one of four runner-ups for the Gage Award, which recognizes healthcare organizations for implementing successful improvement projects and spreading best practices and innovative programs to other organizations. The SBUH team has been invited to present this program as a noteworthy project recipient at the AEH Vital 2019 conference in June. The program has also garnered national recognition from Vizient and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI).
As many of you know, ensuring that we are providing high-quality, safe care to our patients is near and dear to my heart. I know first-hand the amount of work that was required to achieve and sustain these results and I would like to thank the entire team for your commitment to improving the safety and quality of care provided to patients with diabetes at Stony Brook University Hospital.
Carol