Times Chronicle & Public Spirit
Einstein Montgomery director wins Patient Safety Award
EAST NORRITON » As Einstein Medical Center Montgomery’s Director of Infection Control and Patient Safety Kelly Romano typically submits nominations for the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Award.
Yet when the Blue Bell resident’s name was submitted for the award recently and she was selected as the winner of the 2021 I AM Patient Safety award from the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority in the Individual Impact category, Romano admitted it came as a complete surprise to her.
“What we do as an institution is we will send out notification to the staff and say, ‘it’s that time of year again to nominate your colleagues for something they’ve done that is absolutely amazing in patient safety.’ We usually get about 20 nominees in our department,” Romano noted. “They write them up and we’ll look at them and send the nominations in to the state and the state will review them and announce the winner. Every year the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority requests hospitals across the state to submit to them anybody who may be going over and above to help keep patients safe. The nominations are pretty much peer-selected. We’ve had a lot of winners from our hospital, which is great. Since I’ve been in this role we’ve had had a winner nearly every year.”
When the state reviews the candidates judges are unaware where each candidate is from, Romano said..
“They read the stories and the team selects who they believe has the most compelling data and stories and they recognize the winners. It’s really nice recognition and I was not expecting this at all. I had no idea I was being nominated. Usually the nominations come through me but I didn’t know about this. I would guess there is someone on the leadership team who bypassed me right up and got my nomination in,” Romano added.
“What makes me so humbled is that it’s the work of the staff that they do every single day that makes what I do possible, and any success really comes from them.”
A press release explained that Einstein Montgomery is one of 11 healthcare facilities across Pennsylvania that are being recognized for their advancements, outcomes, and commitment to patient safety.
Since its inception in 2013, the I AM Patient Safety awards have honored hundreds of programs and individuals taking action to positively foster patient safety. This year’s award categories include Ambulatory Surgery Facility, Focus On the Patient, Improving Diagnosis, Individual Impact, Long-Term Care Facility, Safety Story, and Transparency and Safety in Healthcare. Three new categories were added for 2021: Conquering COVID, Physician Offices, and Nationwide Warriors. An Executive Director’s Choice award was also selected.
Since becoming Director of Infection Control and Patient Safety in 2016 and serving as the hospital’s Patient Safety Officer, Romano has put into operation a number of her ideas, including a daily patient safety leadership call and a “Good Catch” program.
“We gather by phone all of the leaders within the organization of all departments so we can discuss any events that may have occurred in the last 24 hours … is there an elevator that might be down, that might cause a backup in transporting patients, or something like that, and everybody checks in to make sure we have everything covered and safe for patient care for the day,” Romano said of the daily patient safety leadership call.
Patient safety covers a lot of ground at Einstein Montgomery, Romano noted.
“And it’s all departments … so it’s our maintenance team, housekeeping staff, IT department, nursing, physicians, the OR staff checks in, nutrition, therapies , everything that might be contributing to patient care that day.”
Romano’s background in public health served her well leading up to her current responsibilities, she pointed out.
“I started out with the Montgomery County Health Department before I started with Montgomery Hospital back in the day, as disease intervention specialist, so essentially I was in the infection control realm long before I was in patient safety. That’s how I got to Einstein Montgomery. I was looking to do something different and had never worked in a hospital before. In 2015 they approached me and asked if I’d be interested in taking on patient safety. I agreed to it and I learn something new every day. At the time, our COO was fulfilling that role and it became too much for her; the hospital had grown and there were a lot of projects and she was unable to continue to do the work on her own.”
As a two-time breast cancer survivor at the relatively young ages of 32 and 38, Romano brought support to the area for others who shared her struggles.
“Both times it was before the age of 40, and during that first time going to different groups in the area there really wasn’t a group that fit me,” she recalled. “A lot of folks who were at the groups were much older and a lot of the things I had questions about weren’t really translating to the people in the group. It was disheartening and I didn’t have a support team that could understand what I was going through. My son was two and we were a young family and it was hard.”
She soon discovered the Young Survival Coalition, which caters to women who’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer under the age of 40.
Before long she was helping to launch a chapter in Montgomery County.
“As a survivor, I decided that I wanted to start a support group here where we were not meeting that need for young women in this area. The group has grown and we’ve reached a lot of women, and the hospital here did ask me to speak at their survivors venue and it was really nice,” Romano said.
Regarding Romano’s Patient Safety award, Beth Duffy, President and Chief Operating Officer for Einstein Medical Center Montgomery, noted, “Patient safety is our number one priority and Kelly is a tremendous asset in developing initiatives to improve outcomes and in ensuring that our patients receive safe, high-quality care. I’m so pleased that she has been honored with this award and it is well-deserved.”
Romano said she feels humbled by the many contributions from the staff.
“I think the most exciting piece of this role as the Patient Safety Officer was implementing a just culture years ago,” she said. “Essentially, it helps staff speak up about concerns that they might have and to make sure they have voice and a platform for picking up on errors before they might get to a patient. We’ve put all these systems in place to help us to do that, and they do work. The staff might have ideas for patient safety initiatives, or they see something in practice that they think can be improved on. It’s just a really helpful process. And that was a huge undertaking. We have a really smart crew and they really want to make sure their patients are getting the best and safest care possible. The Patient Safety Program is so much more than I ever could have imagined it to be,” Romano added. “I’m still not done with what I want to see in patient safety, being proactive and getting ahead of things. I really do love it, with our safety call and the ‘Good Catch’ program, which the staff loves because they’re recognized for ‘good catches’. I take patient care to heart. I want to make sure that every person that comes in here gets treated as if they were my mother or my family. And I think the staff looks at it that way too.”