Hospital Goes Extra Mile to Ensure Patient Safety

Most hospitals thrive due to the necessary function they perform in society. Yet all hospitals are not created equal.

Certain hospitals are known for their specialty in a specific field of medicine or for having an overall excellent reputation. The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland, and the University of Chicago Medical Center are three such hospitals.

Having prestigious specialists on staff and cutting-edge medical procedures can certainly help a hospital establish itself as a premiere health institution. There are also other, smaller changes a hospital can implement to improve its overall level of care and patient safety.

John Muir Hospital is a 321-bed acute-care hospital and regional trauma center in Walnut Creek, California. In 2003, the hospital staff decided to implement a series of small changes in order to make their hospital into a medical center of note.

John Muir already had an above average reputation. The hospital’s mortality rate was 10 percent above the California average at the time. However hospital leaders decided it was time to further raise the bar on the quality of care they could provide their patients.

Increasing patient safety was the ultimate goal of the hospital improvement plan. In order to achieve this, John Muir needed to reduce human error and increase efficiency in its financial operations, prescription ordering, medication dosing, medical imaging and surgery scheduling.

Health care services provider McKesson aided John Muir in its quest for improvement. Various McKesson health care software solutions were employed to meet hospital goals of patient safety.

Horizon Admin-RX helped to ensure correct medication dosage by implementing a bar-code scanning system for patients and medication. McKesson’s web-based Physician’s Portal gave John Muir doctors quick and easy access to vital patient information. Overall, McKesson deployed over 30 IT programs to streamline hospital operations.

Since program implementation, John Muir has excelled in its efforts to provide patients with top-notch medical care. The hospital’s mortality rate is now 53 percent better than California’s average. Patients are receiving better quality, more efficient care than ever. A series of small-scale changes turned John Muir hospital from a good health care provider to a great health care provider.