KHC has successfully led a number of intiatives to support our hospitals and partnerships in their efforts to improve quality and safety.
Some of the previous initiatives include:
Align All Health
Align All Health was a targeted intervention for hospitals and community mental health centers to improve health outcomes and care transitions for high-risk and behavioral health patients.
The KHC Align All Health Initiative was conducted by the Kansas Healthcare Collaborative in partnership with the Kansas Health Information Network and with grant funding from the COPIC Medical Foundation which provided funding through June 2022. This grant provided opportunities for facilities to explore how the KHIN Health Information Exchange (HIE) technology could help bridge gaps in care for high-risk patients, particularly those with behavioral health conditions. The KHIN high-risk patient dashboard included those with three or more chronic disease conditions who also experienced five or more emergency room visits in the prior 18 months.
Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN)
From December 2011 through March 2020, the Kansas Healthcare Collaborative led hospital patient safety improvement efforts with more than 115 hospitals statewide on behalf of the Kansas Hospital Association as a state partner with the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) of the American Hospital Association. The Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN) built upon the collective momentum of the Hospital Engagement Networks to reduce patient harm and preventable readmissions. Hospitals across Kansas and across the nation worked toward the CMS initiative's goals to achieve a 20 percent decrease in overall patient harm and a 12 percent reduction in 30-day hospital readmissions from 2014 and 2015 baselines.
Practice Transformation Network
As part of its core initiatives, KHC has most provided direct, in-person assistance to participating practices through its Practice Transformation Network (PTN) as part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) Transforming Clinical Practices Initiative (TCPI) initiative. During the PTN program, practices and clinicians had the opportunity to collaborate with clinician colleagues locally, regionally, and nationally to accelerate innovative care strategies. Since 2015, KHC enrolled over 1,400 clinicians from across Kansas in the Practice Transformation Network.
Antibiotic Stewardship
Members of the advisory group for the Kansas Healthcare-Associated Infections & Antimicrobial Resistance Program
Antibiotics save lives, but any time antibiotics are used, they can cause side effects and lead to antibiotic resistance.
KHC is working with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) to advance its Healthcare-Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance Program statewide.
Antibiotic Stewardship / HAIs
Members of the advisory group for the Kansas Healthcare-Associated Infections & Anti-microbial Resistance Program
Antimicrobial Stewardship and HAI Prevention
Antibiotics save lives, but any time antibiotics are used, they can cause side effects and lead to antibiotic resistance. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 47 million antibiotic prescriptions are unnecessarily given in doctors’ offices and emergency rooms across the U.S. each year, which makes improving antibiotic prescribing and use a national priority. The CDC also reports that drug-resistant bacteria cause 23,000 deaths and 2 million illnesses each year.
KHC partners with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) to advance its Healthcare-Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance Program statewide. Antimicrobial Stewardship also has been a focus in recent KHC hospital-based patient safety initiatives.
A variety of learning opportunities and resources are available in support of efforts by hospitals, clinicians, and others who are leading this important work.
Safety Focus Areas
Through the KHC Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (Oct. 2016 - March 2020), medical professionals pursued ambitious goals to help hospitals make health care safer and less costly by reducing health care-acquired conditions and preventable readmissions.
STRIVE
STRIVE - States Targeting Reduction in Infections via Engagement
More than 20 Kansas hospitals participated in the final cohort of STRIVE, a patient safety improvement program for hospitals working to improve general infection prevention and control practices. The 12-month program for acute care hospitals and LTACHs began June 2017.
STRIVE was a national initiative funded by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and administered by the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET). Hospitals collaborated to work on practices to reduce healthcare-associated infections, such as Clostridium difficile infections (CDI), central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI), catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI), and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia.
State partners in this initiative included Kansas Healthcare Collaborative, Kansas Foundation for Medical Care and the Kansas Department of Health & Environment.
Early Elective Delivery
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) Bureau of Family Health, the March of Dimes and the Kansas Healthcare Collaborative (KHC) joined together to encourage continued progress towards eliminating early elective deliveries (EED) in Kansas. Together, the organizations supported Kansas birthing hospitals in adopting the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) guidelines that highlighed the importance of allowing babies to reach 39 weeks gestation through the elimination of elective labor inductions and cesarean sections.
Kansas hospitals recognized for patient safety work in HEN 2.0
Kansas hospitals participated in the campaign conducted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Partnership for Patients program involving more than 3,700 hospitals nationally. The Kansas HEN 2.0 was managed by the Kansas Healthcare Collaborative, on behalf of the Kansas Hospital Association in partnership with the AHA/HRET and more than 30 other state hospital associations.
HEN 2.0 continued a national initiative with the ambitious goal to reduce adverse events by 40 percent and readmissions by 20 percent. Hospitals worked together to make improvements in processes and outcomes for 10 or more core patient safety areas, such as the prevention of falls, infections and adverse drug events.
In HEN 2.0, Kansas’ most impactful 40/20 successes were in the focus areas of CAUTI (catheter associated urinary tract infections), CLABSI (central line associated bloodstream infections), and EED (early elective deliveries). Through 2016, Kansas hospitals improved patient care by reducing CLABSI by 55 percent, CAUTI by 28 percent, and EED by 70 percent. Through teamwork, accountability and leadership, in less than 12 months, the Kansas HEN 2.0 resulted in prevention of an estimated 234 harms at an estimated health care cost savings of more than $1.6 million.
The national HEN as well as the Kansas HEN provided education and resources to Kansas hospitals, including evidence-based practice protocols for reducing harm, technical assistance and consultation specific to a hospital’s needs, nationally and locally-renowned subject matter experts providing the latest information and the opportunity for peer-to-peer learning.
Throughout the course of the one-year project, hospitals in the AHA/HRET HEN 2.0 network prevented over 34,000 harms and contributed to more than $288 million in cost savings. Results of its collective efforts are available in a final report at www.hret-hen.org.
Emergency Departments help reduce CAUTIs
Fourteen Kansas hospital emergency departments participated in the On the CUSP: Stop CAUTI improvement intervention for E.D.s from January through July 2015.
On the CUSP: Stop CAUTI
As part of the On the CUSP: Stop CAUTI program, 17 Kansas hospitals participated in a nine-month quality improvement project focused on preventing catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) in the intensive care unit (ICU) setting from December 2014 through August 2015.
On the CUSP: Stop BSI
Kansas Hospitals Reduced Bloodstream Infections by 38%
Through a joint effort to enhance the quality of health care patients receive, Kansas hospitals significantly reduced central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) after one year of participation in the Kansas On the CUSP: Stop BSI project. Working together with the Kansas Healthcare Collaborative (KHC), 50 unit teams participated in this voluntary national effort to eliminate CLABSI using the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP).
On the CUSP: STOP BSI was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The national partners of this initiative include the Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET) of the American Hospital Association, the Michigan Keystone Center for Patient Safety, and Johns Hopkins Quality Safety and Research group. The goals of the Kansas On the CUSP: Stop BSI project were to eliminate, or at least reduce, CLABSI rates to no more than one infection per 1,000 catheter days and to improve safety culture on hospital units. —February 28, 2012