Borgess improves nonsurgery heart case mortality in a 24-month period  

Nationally recognized Kalamazoo, MI-based Borgess Medical Center is a 426-bed regional acute care hospital serving southwest Michigan. Among its areas of excellence, it is respected as a worldwide leader in interventional cardiology, performing more than 650 procedures annually. In 1999, the Sisters of St. Joseph, a Borgess sponsor, and the Daughters of Charity created Ascension Health – the nation’s largest nonprofit healthcare system.

Situation:

The medical center learns of higher-than-predicted mortality rates for nonsurgical heart cases.
For two years, Borgess tried to bring its nonsurgical heart case statistics back in line with expectations and to regain regional competitiveness, but labor-intensive chart reviews limited the scope of the analysis, and the data failed to reveal obvious points of intervention or improvement strategies. With the situation persisting, the board of directors called for a more aggressive plan of action.

Solution:

To consistently produce better-than-average mortality rates, Borgess needed an effective analysis of the nonsurgical heart case statistics and a deep understanding of the clinical processes driving the organization’s care delivery practices, including those responsible for poor outcomes. Borgess turned to Quality ManagerTM and Premier consultants to develop a formal clinical process improvement plan and provide the domain knowledge and analysis of the underlying data that Borgess would need to maintain ongoing quality initiatives in other clinical areas.

Results:

• Within three months of implementing improvement strategies, the mortality rate for medically managed AMI patients was cut in half – from 19 percent to 8 percent.
• There were also improvements in many clinical processes:
  • AMI admissions directly managed by cardiologists increased from 74 percent to 84 percent.
  • No AMI patients were admitted to the neurology ICU.
  • The frequency of beta-blocker administration improved from 58 percent to 82 percent.
  • Only 14 percent of patients waited more than 10 minutes before receiving an EKG.
  • Only 31 percent of patients waited more than one hour to reach the cardiac catheterization lab.

 

 

"Working with Premier, we were able to reverse a difficult clinical and strategic issue that earned praise from our board of trustees and resulted in a wonderful clinical outcome for our community"

Sanford Tolchin, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Borgess Medical Center

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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