QUALITY: Baylor Receives National Quality Healthcare Award

There's a big story (subscription required) in this week's Modern Healthcare magazine describing the great care being delivered by the Baylor Health Care System in Dallas. The article is inspired by the National Quality Healthcare Award that Baylor will receive tonight from the National Quality Forum, Modern Healthcare, and the Studer Group.

The article states that through devotion to data transparency and analysis, Baylor is able to identify preventable adverse events including falls, medication errors, and surgical site infections, and analyze not only the degree to which they can be prevented, but also specific actions (such as a malfunctioning safety device or poor communication) as well as inactions. They also provide quality and performance data on their intranet so that physicians and staff can track their performance.

But my favorite anecdote is this:

Inpatients at Baylor Health Care System in Dallas don't have to wait until they're in crisis to get a visit from a rapid response team.

The team, made up of a nurse, a respiratory therapist and sometimes a hospitalist or intensivist, is available whenever a nurse feels she needs extra help or a second set of eyes and hands with a struggling patient, or when a patient's physician calls in and needs an immediate assessment. Even family members can summon the RRT if their loved one just isn't looking right. Instituted in 2006, the teams have contributed to a 12% drop in inpatient mortality.

You read that right. Just by being more responsive to a nurse, physician, or family member's uneasiness, Baylor is able to save lots of lives. Dr. Carl Couch, co-Chair of Baylor's Best Care Committee and Dr. Don Kennerly, their Chief Patient Safety Officer, both told us that a few years ago the Baylor culture didn't have a tolerance for false alarms, but now allows for and even rewards those who call the RRT over something that turns out to be nothing. It's okay to not be right 100 percent of the time. That way, no one is afraid to make the call. The results are nothing short of impressive.

Dr. Guy Clifton, my colleague on the health policy team here at New America, and I had the pleasure of visiting Baylor last month, and we (with Len Nichols) are currently writing a case study that the Commonwealth Fund will publish later this year. Baylor is doing truly remarkable things—this is only the tip of the iceberg.