News
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACTS:
Alven Weil
Premier Inc.
704.733.5797
Scott Larson
St. Joseph's/Candler
912.429.1410
St. Joseph's/Candler Health System expands Premier healthcare alliance affiliation to include Web-based infection tracking solution
New participant in Premier's QUEST initiative will use SafetySurveillor® to help prevent healthcare-associated infections and optimize antibiotic use
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (October 26, 2009) – St. Joseph's/Candler Health System (SJ/C) of Savannah, Ga., is expanding its relationship with the Premier healthcare alliance by implementing Premier's SafetySurveillor® Web-based infection tracking and antimicrobial utilization solution. The health system will join the more than 270 hospitals that have chosen SafetySurveillor to help prevent healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and optimize antibiotic use, with a goal of protecting patients more effectively while safely reducing hospital costs.
"SafetySurveillor is a useful tool for our infection control practitioners," said Sherry Danello, chief nursing officer of SJ/C. "It should open up many opportunities for us in the area of infection surveillance, treatment and prevention, as well as more appropriate and cost-effective use of antimicrobials."
Noted as one of the country's Top 100 Integrated Healthcare Systems by Modern Healthcare magazine, St. Joseph's Hospital and Candler Hospital make up the SJ/C Health System.
SafetySurveillor is being utilized to reduce harm as a part of the QUEST: High Performing Hospitals collaborative, a voluntary, three-year project with nearly 200 not-for-profit hospitals across 31 states. Premier recently announced first year results from QUEST. It also expanded participation in QUEST, adding more than 30 additional hospitals, including SJ/C.
"Hospitals rely on Safety Surveillor to effectively manage infection control surveillance, prevention and reporting efforts that improve efficiency, reduce infections and automate surveillance efforts," said Premier's Scott D. Pope, Pharm.D., SafetySurveillor national director. "Its Infection Control and Pharmacy modules allow pharmacists to obtain precise alerts and reports on specified usage of selected antibiotics to help improve outcomes, reducing patient length of stay and associated costs."
SafetySurveillor also helps hospitals meet state-mandated public reporting of certain HAIs, including screening for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile, some of the most common and harmful infections found in hospitals today. With the automated SafetySurveillor system, hospitals can detect HAIs, alert staff and facilitate timely intervention to reduce and prevent infections.
As participation in QUEST grows and SafetySurveillor is applied as an infection tracking solution in hospitals, patients nationwide are benefitting from improved preventative care. Developed in partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, QUEST is designed to springboard hospitals to new levels of performance and inform public policies with tangible results. To accomplish this, QUEST benchmarked participating facilities using data from Premier's clinical database to determine the "baseline" level of performance in cost, mortality and evidence-based care delivery. Hospitals were then challenged to overcome the main factors that lead to deaths, errors and excessive costs, and measure themselves against one another to achieve top performance based on the following goals:
- Save lives: Eliminate avoidable hospital mortalities.
- Safely reduce the cost of care: Reduce the costs for each patient's hospitalization.
- Deliver the most reliable and effective care: Ensure that patients receive every recommended evidence-based care measure.
- Improve patient safety (Year 2): Prevent incidents of harm in more than 30 categories, including healthcare-acquired infections and birth injuries.
- Increase satisfaction (Year 2): Improve the patient's overall care experience and loyalty to the care providing facility.
Premier is one of the HAI surveillance system software vendors participating in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention project to develop a standards-based solution for transmission of HAI data from hospitals using existing commercial software systems to the agency's National Healthcare Safety network.
SafetySurveillor is a part of Premier's SafetyConnect program, a comprehensive, integrated product and service offering aimed at addressing the pressing safety and infection-related challenges facing healthcare organizations today.
About St. Joseph's/Candler Health System
Highly regarded as a health provider in the Savannah, Ga., region, St.
Joseph's/Candler combines high-impact technology, breakthrough clinical
treatments and time-honored compassionate care to create "smart medicine" – an
innovative approach to health and well-being. SJ/C offers healthcare services
across the entire continuum, including local and regional primary care,
specialized inpatient and outpatient services at its two anchor hospitals, home
healthcare services, as well as a wide variety of community outreach and
education efforts throughout the region.
About the Premier healthcare alliance, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient
Premier is a performance improvement alliance of more than 2,400 U.S. hospitals
and nearly 70,000 other healthcare sites working together to achieve high quality,
cost-effective care. Owned by not-for-profit hospitals, Premier maintains
the nation's most comprehensive repository of clinical, financial and outcomes
information and operates a leading healthcare purchasing network. A world leader
in helping deliver measurable improvements in care, Premier works with the
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the United Kingdom's National
Health Service North West to improve hospital performance. Headquartered in
Charlotte, N.C., Premier also has offices in San Diego, Philadelphia and
Washington.
http://www.premierinc.com