Quality

Spectrum Health United and Kelsey Hospitals Set Sights on Improved Patient Safety and Quality

Providing world class care requires an unwavering commitment to patient safety and quality.  Medical staff and employees at Spectrum Health United and Kelsey hospitals are dedicated to providing patients with the highest quality and safest treatment possible.  

It is because of this dedication that United and Kelsey hospitals continue their partnership with the Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA) through the MHA Keystone Center for Patient Safety & Quality.  The Keystone Center is dedicated to the implementation of evidence-based best practices and has garnered national recognition for its impact on safety and quality across the state. 

These innovative actions have convened hospitals throughout the state to voluntarily share best practices and information, not only benefitting our patients, but helping position Michigan as the national benchmark for patient safety, quality and efficiency.

These efforts have had a dramatically positive effect on Michigan’s health care system – preventing infections, accidental harm and readmissions; saving thousands of lives; reducing inefficiencies; saving hundreds of millions of dollars; empowering consumers to make informed health care decisions and more. 

Spectrum Health United Hospital is currently active in these MHA Keystone initiatives:

MHA Keystone: Surgery
The surgery program focuses on eliminating surgical site infections, preventing defects in care (including wrong-site surgery and retained foreign objects), eliminating mislabeled specimens and improving the safety and teamwork climate for surgeries performed.

MHA Keystone: Obstetrics (OB)
The OB program focuses on eliminating preventable fetal and maternal harm due to complications of labor. Strategies are incorporated to reduce the number of birth injuries from the current estimate of three injuries for every 1,000 births in the United States.

Both Spectrum Health United and Kelsey hospitals participate in:

MHA Keystone: Emergency Room (ER)
The emergency room program aims to prevent harm to emergency patients by improving safety practices and attitudes, reducing boarding/overcrowding and wait times, and supporting the early treatment of sepsis using evidence-based best practices. These interventions ensure the most critically ill patients receive treatment first and reduce the likelihood that a patient will leave a hospital before being seen.

MHA Keystone: Gift of Life
The Gift of Life program brings together Michigan hospitals and Gift of Life Michigan to improve the organ donation processes using evidence-based best practice. These efforts have helped grow the number of people on the Michigan Organ Donor Registry from 482,000 in 2003 to nearly 2.3 million in August 2011, contributing significantly to saving and improving the lives of thousands of residents.

MHA Keystone: Hospital-Associated Infection (HAI)
The largest of the collaboratives, MHA Keystone: HAI seeks to prevent infections, which occur in approximately one of every 20 hospitalized patients nationwide. These infections are estimated to result in 99,000 associated deaths and $6.65 billion in excess health care costs nationally each year. Development of HAIs puts patients at risk of mortality, longer lengths of stay and higher costs.

“The quality and patient safety team at United and Kelsey hospitals is dedicated to participating in and utilizing the data from the MHA Keystone initiatives,” said Brian Brasser, Chief Nursing Officer. “We continually are seeking ways to provide our patients with an exceptional health care experience. We will continue to be involved with these programs in order to offer the safest, most effective care to all.”

About Spectrum Health United Memorial
Spectrum Health United Memorial is committed to providing excellent personal care and service through state-of-the-art technology and qualified, caring professionals.  Spectrum Health United Memorial is comprised of United Hospital in Greenville, Kelsey Hospital in Lakeview, the Spectrum Health United Memorial Foundation and United Lifestyles. Spectrum Health United Hospital provides local access to quality care through the region’s largest health care system. 

About Spectrum Health
Spectrum Health is a not-for-profit health system in West Michigan offering a full continuum of care through the Spectrum Health Hospital Group, which is comprised of nine hospitals including Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, a state of the art children’s hospital that opened in January 2011, and 190 service sites; the Spectrum Health Medical Group and West Michigan Heart, physician groups totaling more than 600 providers; and Priority Health, a health plan with 625,000 members. Spectrum Health is West Michigan’s largest employer with more than 18,000 employees. The organization provided $176.5 million in community benefit during its 2011 fiscal year. In 2011 and 2010, Spectrum Health was named a Top 10 Health System by Thomson Reuters.