News: North Shore LIJ Wins 2015 John Q. Sherman Award

	John King, president of Standard Register Healthcare, confers the John Q. Sherman Award for Excellence in Patient Engagement to North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System representatives Anna Gaeta, Denise McPartland, and Larry Lutsky.

North Shore Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Health System cut their medication errors related to patient identification by 86% through an innovative project designed to empower patients and standardize the way they are identified throughout the system.

The successful initiative—which was awarded the second annual John Q. Sherman Award for Excellence in Patient Engagement at the National Patient Safety Foundation’s 17th Annual Patient Safety Congress in April—was driven by staff members properly identifying patients 100% of the time during medication administration. That effort resulted in the 86% drop in errors.

Other significant results of the system-wide project included:

• Enterprise-wide training of 35,000 clinical and non-clinical staff through an online learning module.
• Staff knowledge of the critical elements for patient identification improved 13%.
• 83% of staff surveyed agreed  that the culture of safety and patient satisfaction have both improved.

How Did They Do It?

To achieve this system-wide change, the patient identification team asked patients and families for feedback through surveys and storytelling. They learned that patients trusted their care providers but didn’t feel comfortable speaking up when they felt their patient identification was not handled correctly.

The patient identification team went to work, marshaling senior leadership support, listening to key frontline staff, and spreading their message about an issue that many assumed—incorrectly—was being addressed at multiple touch points during a patient’s visit. Using the feedback from patients, families, and frontline staff, the team developed Eight Critical Elements for Patient Identification and empowered patients with Eight Patient Rights, including the right to participate, the right to understand, and the right to consent or refuse treatment.

“Healthcare organizations will only be able to achieve safe, reliable, high quality care by instilling a culture of safety that recognizes we must ‘First do no harm!’ For patient identification, this means following the eight patient rights and eight critical elements for every patient at every encounter,” said Anna Gaeta, RN, BSN, MS, CPHQ, CPPS, assistant director of quality management for the Institute for Clinical Excellence & Quality at North Shore LIJ.

Recognizing Excellence

North Shore LIJ was selected as the recipient of the John Q. Sherman Award for Excellence in Patient Engagement from 43 nominations spanning 26 states and Canada. Nominations came from hospitals and healthcare organizations, large and small. Award submissions captured a wide range of unique initiatives focused on improving patient engagement.

The John Q. Sherman Award was conferred by Standard Register Healthcare and NPSF’s Lucian Leape Institute on behalf of EngagingPatients.org, an online community dedicated to sharing best practices in patient engagement.

“Our panel of judges was inspired by the work done by North Shore LIJ’s Patient Identification Team,” said John King, president of Standard Register Healthcare. “Through their ‘Eight Patient Rights’ program, North Shore LIJ empowered patients and family to become active members of the care delivery process.

They also demonstrated through a holistic design and implementation process, which included patients, family and staff, a means to drive system change on a large scale.”

The John Q. Sherman Award was created in 2014 to shine a spotlight on the innovative programs and people that are improving care and outcomes through patient and family engagement. In addition to selecting North Shore LIJ as the John Q. Sherman Award winner, judges also named seven finalists who are making significant progress in engaging patients and families.

2015 Finalists

• Children’s Hospital of Atlanta (Asthma Center of Excellence)
• Children’s Hospital of Atlanta (Family Voice program)
• Cleveland Clinic
• Contra Costa Regional Medical Center
• The Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania
• Preston Memorial Hospital
• Virginia Mason Medical Center

Full details of the winner and finalists and their award-winning initiatives have been published at www.engagingpatients.org/awardwinners.