(OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. – November 12, 2008) The Joint Commission today named Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, 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.
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center is one of three recipients of the award in the hospital category and is being recognized for an initiative to eliminate preventable surgical site infections. During a two-year period, the organization reduced preventable surgical site infection rates from 1.3 per 100 procedure days to .54 per 100 procedure days by using a new, tailored pediatric surgical site infection “bundle” of care components that decreased infection rates and improved efficiency. This bundle is now being used by other children’s hospitals in the U.S.
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.”
After determining that there was substantial potential for improvement in its surgical site infection rates, the hospital set a goal to reduce the combined Class I and Class II rates to 0.5 per 100 procedure days. Staff emphasized the proper administration of all aspects of their pediatric-specific initiative, including correct pre-operative antibiotic administration, skin preparation and intraoperative oxygen and temperature management. Most importantly, staff made modifications to ensure that approaches were appropriate for the pediatric population. For example, they adapted the pediatric surgical site infection bundle and established pediatric dosing limits and parameters as “one size never fits all.” Finally, the hospital increased internal and external transparency of quality and safety data; surgical site infections were one of the first outcomes posted on the hospital’s Web site.
Established in 1883, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center is greater Cincinnati’s only pediatric hospital and serves the needs of infants, children and adolescents. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital 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: Carolinas Medical Center, Charlotte, North Carolina; 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.