Ohio hospitals’ initiative cheered for saving kids
A decade ago, Ohio’s eight children’s hospitals hatched a plan to become safer for their patients. Since then, 10,206 children have been saved from serious harm, and the hospitals have saved an estimated $173 million, according to the group that formed in pursuit of that initial goal.
The first-of-its-kind initiative, known as the Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety, now includes a network of more than 135 pediatric hospitals across North America. The hospitals share data and ideas to reduce hospitalacquired infections and other patient risks such as allergic reactions to medicine.
“We can all learn from one another,” Nick Lashutka, president and CEO of Solutions for Patient Safety, said Wednesday before an event at the Statehouse celebrating the program’s 10th anniversary. “And we can set up the system in a manner that allows us to transparently share data on what might have happened in your hospital so I can prevent that in my hospital.”
Officials praised the many results of the initiative.
From January 2011 to September 2018, for instance, the rate of surgical-site infections at member hospitals fell 31.2 percent, from roughly 3.25 per 100 procedures to 1.72, the group said.
The rate of adverse drug events, which include allergic reactions and overdoses, dropped 63.9 percent over that same span, from 0.08 per 1,000 patient days to 0.02.
And the number of falls resulting in at least moderate injury plummeted 79.5 percent, from 0.11 per 1,000 patient days to 0.019, according to SPS.
“All of us got into health care because we want to make sure we do all we can to improve the lives of children,” said Dr. Steve Allen, CEO of Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “They happen to be very lowfrequency events,” but preventable harm to even one child is one child too many, he said.
Wednesday’s event also highlighted the initiative’s impact on the hospital industry. Lashutka noted that U.S. News & World Report now asks children’s hospitals if they’re members of SPS in the questionnaire it uses for ranking the best children’s hospitals. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center was ranked second among Best Children’s Hospitals in the publication’s 2018-19 rankings, behind only Boston Children’s Hospital.
The event also featured personal stories from Senate President Larry Obhof, a Lashutka Medina Republican, and Beth Daley Ullem, a SPS board member who lost her newborn son, Michael, at a Chicago-area hospital in 2003 to a medical error that led to him being born with severe brain damage.
Obhof expressed gratitude to everyone working to improve pediatric care, and he spoke about how important children’s hospitals have been in his life, recalling how the Akron Children’s Hospital staff helped his family after his daughter died one day after she was born in 2005. Akron Children’s also helped save another daughter’s life when she stopped breathing at about 10 weeks old, he said. She’s now 7 years old.
“I know I should be talking about how many hospitals we have and how many people are employed, but the statistic that matters most to me is seven — the 7th birthday I got to celebrate this month,” he said.
Ullem, who now lives in California, said she was afraid of how she would keep her second son, Mac, safe when he was born 10 years ago with complex medical needs that led to a long stay in the neonatal intensive care unit.
But SPS offers the “promise of future, safer care to families like mine so we could trust in our care and breathe easier,” she said.
The initiative has evolved to also focus on employee safety, Lashutka said. Healthy, safe employees are necessary to ensure that patients remain safe, he said.
As the safety initiative moves into its second decade, the mission is the same, said Michael Fisher, president and CEO of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
“The goal is zero. The goal is always zero,” he said. “Until we’re able to eliminate all harm, we have a lot of work to do.”