Sea View Hospital Rehabilitation Center and Home Earns The Joint Commission’s 2007 Ernest Amory Codman Award
(OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. – November 6, 2007) The Joint Commission today named Sea View Hospital Rehabilitation Center and Home, Staten Island, New York, a 2007 recipient of the 11th 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.
Sea View is the recipient of the award in the long term care category and is being recognized for an initiative to decrease incontinence, which can lead to skin breakdown, falls and other injuries of nursing home residents. The program led to a drop in incontinence rates from 79 percent in 2003 to 38 percent in 2006, while improving quality of life and maintaining the dignity of facility residents.
“We are pleased to recognize the 2007 Codman Award recipients for their innovative approaches and commitment to using performance measurement to improve the quality and safety of health care,” says Dennis S. O'Leary, M.D., president, The Joint Commission. “Their achievements demonstrate the progress that can be made when performance measurement leads to meaningful practices that benefit patients.”
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 seven recipients of the 2007 Awards.
“We are honored to receive such a prestigious award from The Joint Commission that recognizes the effort of Sea View’s staff and leadership to improve the quality of life for its long term care residents,” says Alan D. Aviles, president, New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC). “This honor is all the more meaningful because Dr. Codman was a strong proponent of outcomes management who encouraged the transparency of outcomes to help guide patients in their health care choices. HHC embraces his philosophy and this namesake award re-affirms our commitment to pursuing transparency and our belief that implementing evidence-based best practices at every level of clinical care leads to improved patient outcomes and increased patient safety.”
Sea View initiated the enhanced toileting program after comparing its residents’ incontinence rates with those published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The program included revised documentation to improve assessment and evaluation of the toileting program, creation of a bowel and bladder incontinent assessment tool to detail the toileting needs of each resident, integration of a new lift device to transfer residents to the toilet and hospital-wide in-service on incontinence and toileting, including the relationship between incontinence, falls and pressure ulcers.
“We are honored to be chosen for this prestigious award,” says Angelo Mascia, executive director, Sea View Hospital Rehabilitation Center. “It is a reflection of the high quality of care we provide our residents. I applaud the Sea View staff for a job well done.”
In addition to reduced incontinence rates, pressure injuries were decreased (from 12.4 percent to 8 percent) and falls dropped from 8.3 percent to 6.1 percent during the same three-year period. The organization also reported decreased staff injuries related to toileting.
Sea View is a 304-bed, long term care facility providing 24-hour nursing and medical care to the frail elderly, chronically ill and disabled. Sea View also offers specialty units for brain injury and Alzheimer’s patients.
Sea View will formally receive the award on November 12, during The Joint Commission and Joint Commission Resources’ Annual Conference on Quality and Safety in Chicago. Additional award recipients in the following categories are:
· Behavioral Health Care: Addiction Treatment Services of Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore, Maryland.
· Hospital: Broward General Medical Center, Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Christiana Care Health Services, Wilmington, Delaware; and Saint Joseph Healthcare, Lexington, Kentucky.
· Multiple Organization: Seton Family of Hospitals, Austin, Texas.
· Individual: John E. Wennberg, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Center for Evaluative Clinical Services at Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, New Hampshire.