Nicklaus Children's Hospital Wins DNV GL Healthcare's Innovation of the Year Award

DENVER, Oct. 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami, Fla. is the recipient of DNV GL Healthcare's Innovation of the Year award at the 2018 Healthcare Symposium: The Future of Accreditation, for its groundbreaking leadership in automating its "crash carts," ensuring they are always up-to-date and ready for patient emergencies.

Nicklaus Children's transformed crash cart management from a daily, manual process that required an annual commitment of the equivalent of four full-time employees to a semi-automated process using radio frequency identification (RFID). As a result, the crash carts can now be checked in under a minute and can automatically communicate to staff which instruments or other items need to be restocked.  Restocking can now be implemented and documented in just minutes, saving the hospital at least $340,000 a year while significantly increasing accountability and improving patient safety.

"Through this project, we learned the importance of re-designing operational work flows that were effective with the new RFID technology," said Jose Perdomo, Nicklaus Children's Senior Vice President of Ethics and Compliance and Chief Privacy Officer. "As we continue to innovate, we are using the accreditation system with DNV GL Healthcare as an educational opportunity and a methodology to standardize how we identify and adopt processes throughout the hospital."

Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago won a runner-up award for closing the gap in care with comprehensive patient navigation. Self Regional Healthcare in Greenwood, S.C. also was recognized for implementing a comprehensive patient care redesign initiative.

Advocate's improvements to post-discharge management by focusing on follow-up appointments lowered readmission rates for high-risk patients while achieving a 9-to-1 return on investment.  Self Regional cut patient fall rates in half while achieving annual savings of more than $79,000.

"This year we had more outstanding entries for the Innovation Award than ever before," noted DNV GL Healthcare President Patrick Horine.

The awards were presented during the 2018 DNV GL Healthcare Symposium in Denver. It was attended by more than 300 healthcare professionals in quality, accreditation and leadership from throughout the U.S.

DNV GL Healthcare is the nation's fastest-growing hospital accreditation organization. It has introduced the ISO 9001 quality management system to American healthcare accreditation. ISO creates a specific roadmap for hospitals to not only adhere to the conditions of participation for the Medicare program, but to continuously improve the delivery of healthcare services at every level.

A case study on Nicklaus Children's transformation is available from the DNV GL Healthcare website and may be downloaded at https://www.dnvgl.us/assurance/healthcare/healthcare-publications-research-papers.html

Gary Davis, DNV GL Business Assurance North American Regional Manager, cites the organization's "kinder and gentler" approach and its year-round partnership strategy as some of the keys to successfully accrediting hospitals and boosting quality improvement at a rate of 20% growth year over year. The majority of hospitals choose accreditation in order to be certified by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to receive federal funds and reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Hundreds of hospitals across the United States have switched to DNV GL Healthcare over the past decade. The organization accredits more than 500 hospitals in 49 states. www.dnvglcert.com/healthcare

About DNV GL Business Assurance

DNV GL Business Assurance is a world-leading certification body. We help businesses assure the performance of their organizations, products, people, facilities and supply chains through certification, verification, assessment, and training services. Within healthcare we help our customers achieve excellence by improving quality and patient safety through hospital accreditation, managing infection risk, management system certification and training.

The DNV GL Group operates in more than 100 countries. Our 12,500 professionals are dedicated to helping our customers make the world safer, smarter and greener.

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SOURCE DNV GL Healthcare