COLUMBUS, OH – The Ohio Children's Hospital Association and its six member hospitals have released the results of a collaboration to improve quality in children's hospitals.
The OCHA created the Ohio Children's Hospital Association's Quality Improvement Collaborative in 2006. In its first initiative, the Collaborative focused on reducing preventable codes, or cardiac and pulmonary arrests, occurring outside of the neonatal and pediatric Intensive Care Units.
As a result of its efforts, the Collaborative identified a medical protocol called a Rapid Response Team that to date, when implemented, has reduced incidences of preventable codes by more than 46 percent.
"While all six member hospitals have long been leaders in quality innovation individually, this is the first time nationally that a statewide group of children's hospitals has come together in a collaborative manner to improve quality in a measurable, meaningful way," said Bill Considine, president and CEO of Akron Children's Hospital and OCHA chairman.
The six members of the OCHA are Akron Children's Hospital; Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center; Dayton Children's Medical Center; Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus; Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital in Cleveland; and Toledo Children's Hospital.
For the Collaborative, each participating hospital adapted a "rapid response team" model to fit within its own patient care environment and culture. Bedside caregivers at the hospitals were able to harness the expertise of the rapid response team when the caregiver determined that immediate intervention was warranted.
Some hospitals created a process that enabled patient families to call upon the rapid response team when they felt their child was in need of assessment.
"I believe this collaborative can be an important factor in improving the quality of care in our state while also helping to curb the rising cost of health care," said Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (D).
The OCHA Quality Improvement Collaborative was paid for entirely through funding by OCHA and its members.
"It's never easy to shine a light on areas where improvements can be made, but we do it because it's the right thing to do to save children's lives and in the long run saves our hospitals money, enhances our efficiency and expenditure of scarce healthcare resources," said Considine.
Ohio's children's hospitals are extremely reliant on Medicaid funding (nearly 50 percent of patients at children's hospitals rely on Medicaid compared to just 12 percent for general hospitals. More than 1.2 million Ohio children - or one in three Ohio children - rely on Medicaid for healthcare coverage.
Considine said initiatives like the Collaborative help to make more efficient use of the state's tax dollars.
"Without stable Medicaid funding, these types of programs would not be possible." Considine said.
