BWFH providers present at 3rd Annual Partners Quality & Safety Symposium

At the 3nd Annual Partners Quality & Safety Symposium, held recently at Partners HealthCare corporate headquarters at Assembly Row, providers from across the Partners system gathered to explore the topic of “Advancing Quality Together.” Among the presenters were two teams from Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital.

From 6 South, Elizabeth Harry, MD, and Aliesha Wisdom, MSN, RN, CNL, prepared the presentation “Building an Accountable Care Unit.” The accountable care unit is an interdisciplinary care model that focuses on improving communication and quality-safety outcomes in the patient and family care model by focusing on three areas: change of shift huddles, structured interdisciplinary bedside rounds (SIBR) and bedside hand-offs.

“We walked through what SIBR looks like—who’s involved in the interdisciplinary rounds and what the scripts look like—then reviewed some of the preliminary data,” says Dr. Harry. “Some questions I received were logistical: ‘How do you coordinate the entire team so that everyone is on time?’ I also noticed members of the audience taking photos of some our slides. They were most interested in the diagrams that showed where each member of the team stands in the room and the slides that outlined best practices.”

From 7 North, Karen Jiang, MD, and Vonette Anglin, MSN, RN, NP, presented “Driving More Efficient Care by Increasing Discharges Before Noon.” 7 North’s quality improvement project to increase before noon discharges has been very successful. “We have increased the rate of before noon discharge on 7 North from 7 percent to 17 to 21 percent over 6 months,” says Dr. Jiang. “We wanted to share the effectiveness of our initiative to encourage other institutions in the Partners system to make before noon discharges a priority as a way to promote efficient care and good hospital flow. We also showed that the project helped to promote interdisciplinary teamwork and it boosted hospital morale and team spirit.”

Dr. Jiang says the audience was very engaged. “Many asked questions,” she says. “There was one question on how we modified interdisciplinary rounds to help with the initiative, what barriers we have faced and how to analyze the data.”

Anglin adds, “There were also specific questions regarding nursing involvement and patient participation in the early discharge process. Overall we were very well received”

For both teams, participation in the 3nd Annual Partners Quality & Safety Symposium allowed for an opportunity to share what they’ve learned through their own recent quality improvement projects. It was also an opportunity to engage with members of other Partners institutions and explore how we are all part of the larger mission to provide the best possible patient care.