(OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. – November 12, 2008) The Joint Commission today named Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, North Carolina, a 2008 recipient of the 12th annual Ernest Amory Codman Award. The award recognizes excellence in the use of outcomes measurement by health care organizations to achieve improvements in the quality and safety of health care.
Carolinas Medical Center is one of three recipients of the award in the hospital category, and is being recognized for an initiative to provide early treatment of severe sepsis and septic shock for emergency department patients. The program resulted in a 30 percent decrease in the mortality of patients in the emergency department with suspected or confirmed sepsis, a serious illness that requires quick diagnosis.
Named for the physician regarded in health care as the “father of outcomes measurement,” the Ernest Amory Codman Award showcases the effective use of performance measurement by health care organizations to improve the quality and safety of health care. The Joint Commission also recognizes an individual who has played a significant leadership role in promoting the use of performance measures to improve health care services, or who has made major contributions to the development and testing of performance measures or the science and art of quality improvement. A panel of national experts in quality measurement and improvement selected the five recipients of the 2008 Awards.
“The 2008 Codman Award recipients exemplify how performance measurement improves the quality and safety of health care,” says Mark R. Chassin, M.D., M.P.P., M.P.H., president, The Joint Commission. “Their achievements demonstrate the progress that can be made when process and outcomes measures are combined into meaningful practices that result in better patient care.”
Using a modified version of the early goal-directed therapy (EGDT) protocol, the medical center’s Code Sepsis Task Force created a major change in the way their emergency department diagnoses and treats severe sepsis and septic shock. To eliminate infection and keep blood pressure from dropping too low, sepsis patients were treated more aggressively—with a significantly greater crystalloid volume, higher frequency of vasopressor infusion, and greater packed red blood cell transfusion. Before the project was initiated, in-hospital mortality of sepsis patients was 21 of 79 patients (27 percent). During the second year of the project, mortality decreased to 13 of 75 patients (17 percent). The focus on sepsis also resulted in better outcomes for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (6 percent reduction in mortality) and acute renal failure (7 percent reduction in mortality).
“Outstanding teamwork by a dedicated group of clinicians has led to high quality outcomes and to this recognition,” says Suzanne Freeman, president, Carolinas Medical Center. “This innovative and leading edge clinical care can meet the emergent needs of patients with sepsis, in our hospital and around the country. It results from superior medical leadership and a passionate commitment to our patients.”
Carolinas Medical Center is an 874-bed hospital which includes a Level I trauma center, a research institute and a large number of specialty treatment units (heart, cancer, organ transplant, behavioral health, etc.). The medical center also serves as one of North Carolina's five Academic Medical Center Teaching Hospitals, providing residency training for more than 200 physicians in 15 specialties.
Carolinas Medical Center will formally receive the award on November 19 during The Joint Commission and Joint Commission Resources Annual Conference on Quality and Safety in Chicago. Additional award recipients in the following categories are:
- Hospital: Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio; and Mission Hospital, Mission Viejo, California.
- Multiple Organization: Novant Health, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
- Individual (posthumous): Shukri F. Khuri, M.D., former professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, former chief of cardiothoracic surgery at VA Boston Healthcare Systems and former vice chairman, department of surgery, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.