Novant Health

(OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. – November 12, 2008) The Joint Commission today named Novant Health, Winston-Salem, 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.

Novant Health is the recipient of the award in the multiple organization category, and is being recognized for its comprehensive program to improve compliance with hand hygiene practices and reduce methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections. Hand hygiene compliance rates improved from 49 percent to 98 percent during a four-year period, and MRSA rates decreased from 0.5 per 1000 patient days to 0.3 per 1000 patient days—a 40 percent reduction. This translated to 100 fewer MRSA health care-associated infections for the Novant health care system.

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 care for patients.”

Novant Health began an aggressive campaign in 2004 to address hand hygiene compliance rates and decrease its rates of MRSA infections, aiming to reach hand hygiene compliance rates above 90 percent for all acute care facilities within the system. Novant’s program included alcohol-based hand sanitizers, two dedicated compliance monitors, a red light/green light format for recording compliance, sharing monthly compliance data, and staff communications that emphasized lives would be saved by practicing good hand hygiene. The program allowed for flexibility among facilities and units. Activities included a “Gel in, Gel out” campaign and an educational package that highlighted the expectations of hand hygiene compliance via a “What is measured gets done” initiative. The program achieved cultural change by emphasizing patient safety and proved that behaviors can be changed when employees understand that everyone is responsible for patient outcomes.

“Washing hands seems like such a simple task,” says Paul Wiles, CEO and President, Novant Health. “But it took a relentless and creative solution to improve our health system’s hand hygiene compliance. We were honest with staff, telling them that we could save patient lives if we were all successful. And now we know that our improvement spared 249 patients from the complications of MRSA.”

The not-for-profit Novant Health serves residents in North and South Carolina with nine hospitals, 340 physician clinics, two nursing home and senior residential facilities, outpatient surgery centers, rehabilitation and community health outreach programs.

Novant Health 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; Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio; and Mission Hospital, Mission Viejo, California.
• 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.