Awards & Recognition

Pediatric Surgery Team Aims to Reduce ED Visits for G-tube Issues by 25%

A Pediatric Surgery team, led by Marsha Pulhamus, P.N.P. and Derek S. Wakeman, M.D., wants to prevent ED visits from pediatric patients whose feeding tubes dislodge after discharge from the hospital. Their goal: improve patient satisfaction and reduce ED visits by 25 percent in one year.

Gold

Pediatric ED UPP Team

Reduced Length of Stay for Low Acuity Pediatric Patients

This Unit-based Performance Program team of Pediatric Emergency Medicine nurses, advanced practice providers and physicians collaborated with the adult ED to reduce length of stay (LOS) for low acuity patients in the Pediatric ED. Through small tests of change (gradual, small improvements) and trying out new approaches, the team successfully implemented a fast track for low acuity Pediatric ED patients, reducing LOS from 124 to 40 minutes.

But that’s not all. The team also improved compliance with antibiotics being administered within one hour from 40 to 92 percent and increased vital sign documentation compliance from 62 to 91 percent.

Silver

Pediatric ICU Team

Reduced LOS through Improved ICU Delirium Detection

This team of leaders, frontline physicians, nurses and therapists set out to reduce length of stay (LOS) by improving ICU delirium detection. With the help of small tests of change, extensive and consistent education and support, monthly data charts and variation reduction through the use of guidelines, the team was able to reduce LOS by 10 percent in the Pediatric ICU (PICU). Moreover, the PICU’s trend line for LOS has decreased from just under 6 days to just over 4 days between January 2017 and December 2018.

Gold

Temperature Sensor Project Team

Implementing a High Impact, Service Line-Wide Improvement

Each month, Pediatric staff would spend 125 hours manually monitoring and recording the temperatures of refrigerators, freezers and warmers used across the service line. When Pediatrics’ Diane Prinzing, information analyst, and Karen Bisbo, administrative assistant, discovered an opportunity to ditch the process, they formed a project team of from Pediatrics, ISD and Facilities to help implement traceable temperature tags. With all equipment now automatically monitored 24/7, temperature-related citations have been avoided and significant improvements have been made. For example, when a donor human milk freezer broke in the NICU in February, staff received an alert and were able to promptly move the $15,000 worth of donor milk to another freezer.

Peds Surgery QI Team with the Team Based Care Summit Award

The Pediatric Surgery Quality Improvement Group (PSQIP) was chosen for the 2017 URMC Team Based Care Summit Award. The team submitted an abstract that showed reductions in surgical site infections, fewer unplanned re-intubations, reduced CT scan use, reduced blood transfusion use, reduced length of stay and fewer readmissions. The team attached estimated dollar amounts to the reduced complication and calculated a cost saving of greater than 1.5 Million dollars.

Golisano Children's Hospital and Strong Memorial Hospital recognized as 'Gold Safe Sleep Champions'

UR Medicine’s Golisano Children’s Hospital and Strong Memorial Hospital’s Obstetrics Division are recognized by the National Safe Sleep Hospital Certification Program as “Gold Safe Sleep Champions,” the highest designation, for their commitment to best practices and education on infant safe sleep.

• Learn more at Pediatric Sleep Medicine's "Safe Sleep".

Nursing Excellence

We have been re-designated as Magnet® hospital. The achievement reflects Strong’s high quality of patient care, outstanding nursing standards and practice, and supportive environment for its 2,200 nursing professionals. Fewer than 7 percent of American hospitals have received this honor from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC).