The Johns Hopkins Medicine Center for Innovation in Patient Quality Care (Center) team knows that one solution does not fit all hospitals or even all units within a hospital. The Center works with dedicated healthcare professionals at all levels and across multiple departments with a variety of tools, methodologies and training programs. Through its efforts, the Center endeavors to advance and spread the impact of safety innovations at Johns Hopkins Medicine and other hospitals. Areas of focus include:
I. Building a culture of safe care – training modules, tools and programs, including:
- Strategic planning/framework
- Leadership seminar click here
- Comprehensive Unit-Based Safety Program (CUSP) click here
- Teamwork and Communications Training click here
- Hand hygiene program and campaign
- E-learning modules click here
- Aid hospitals to develop patient safety programs click here
II. Measurement – tools to ensure there is an organizational focus on patient safety, including:
- Safety Dashboards (unit and department-level)
- Weekly Report of Harm, a concise report of key patient safety-related events that are shared with the Board of Directors and department heads
- Safety Attitude Questionnaire Survey to assess culture change over time
- Benchmarking against U.S. and international standards
III. Providing more effective care by developing multidisciplinary collaboratives to ensure evidence-based guidelines are translated into daily practice
- Improve Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Care click here
- Prevention of Venous Thromboembolism (VTE)
- Prevention of Surgical Site Infections (SSI) click here
- Improve Perioperative Care click here
IV. Delivering efficient and timely care
- Lean Sigma: Training and project facilitation click here
- Lean Kaizen: Workshops and project facilitation
If interested in one or more of these programs, please contact us: Click Here
Leadership seminar. This seminar shares Hopkins’ experience in changing its culture to be more focused on patient safety. It covers: introduction of measurements; fostering creation of a non-punitive environment to drive more accurate reporting of harm/potential harmful events; motivating senior staff to adopt a unit; and engaging senior executives in patient safety rounds.
Comprehensive-Unit Based Safety Program (CUSP): 6 Steps to Safety
CUSP is a framework designed to support local efforts to enhance safety. Its implementation has reduced hospital acquired infections and complications and improved nurse and physician satisfaction. The program enables hospital unit staff to regularly identify safety concerns, learn of successful approaches, and develop solutions. The Center has instituted over 40 CUSP units at Johns Hopkins and aided hospitals in the U.S. and overseas to implement similar programs. The six-step CUSP process is:
- Evaluate the unit's culture of safety
- Educate staff on the science of safety
- Identify defects from safety survey and incident reports
- Assign an executive to adopt the unit
- Learn from one identified defect each month
- Re-evaluate the unit's culture of safety
 | Left: Physicians, nurses and pharmacists gather with Johns Hopkins University President William Brody during CUSP rounds. |
Teamwork and Communications training. Half day sessions are designed to teach more effective communication techniques and skills for developing cohesive teams in the operating rooms. Training focuses on communication styles, checklists, operating room “timeouts” and briefings/debriefings.
E-learning modules on a variety of topics, including: venous thromboembolism (VTE) prevention, surgical site infection (SSI) prevention, hospital acquired infection (HAI) prevention, hand hygiene observer training, teamwork and communications, and Joint Commission requirements/accreditation.
Aid hospitals to develop patient safety programs
Sharing Hopkins expertise and experiences with other hospitals is at the core of the Center's mission. The Center has provided training and expertise to medical institutions seeking to institute or improve quality measures, patient safety programs, and a culture of safety. Based on a hospital’s needs, the Center can provide consulting services, on-site training or distance learning. A single model of care to reduce length of stay, enhance patient safety and improve the patients’ hospital experience does not work for all hospitals. The strength of the Center is that the physicians, nurses and senior leaders conducting day-to-day work at Hopkins can aid their peers in other hospitals to develop and implement various patient safety programs. The Center creates solutions jointly with other hospitals' staff so that solutions best match local environments. Over the past several years, the Center has worked with hospitals in the U.S., Europe, Middle East, and Latin America. This has been accomplished though on-site visits, distance learning, onsite training and consulting.
Please contact: Click Here
Meet our team: Click Here
Collaboratives. The goals of collaboratives are to:
- Facilitate experiential learning
- Measure “how often do we do what we should” using nationally and internationally recognized measures or developing valid measures
- Develop a toolkit
- Create multidisciplinary teams and structures to guide the process
- Share results across the organization
- Create a network and resource for internal collaboration
Some examples of collaboratives are:
Improve Intensive Care Unit (ICU) Care includes an assessment of current practices and adapting evidenced-based best practices to the local culture which includes: ventilator associated pneumonia bundle, catheter-related blood stream infection bundle, tight glucose control, improve care of septic patients with sepsis bundle, improve palliative care with care and communication bundle, daily goals sheet to decrease length of stay, overall prevention of transmission of infections, and medication reconciliation.
Surgical Site Infection Prevention collaborative brings together surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists, technicians, and administrators across the institution to implement, monitor, and ensure adherence to evidence-based guidelines to prevent surgical site infections.
Improve Perioperative Care Program includes an assessment of current practices and adapting evidenced-based best practices to the local culture which includes surgical site infection prevention bundle, strategies to reduce wrong side/wrong site surgeries with the mislabeled specimen par, operating rooms briefing/debriefings, venous thromboembolism (VTE) prevention bundle.
