VHA Hospital Engagement Network Participants Achieve Significant Quality and Patient Safety Improvements

IRVING, Texas, May 19, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- VHA Inc., a national network of not-for-profit health care organizations, announced that the 182 hospitals participating in its Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) have achieved significant improvements in patient safety and quality care. VHA's HEN, part of the federal Partnership for Patients initiative, helps hospitals improve in ten areas of focus ranging from falls and surgical site infections to readmissions.

VHA's HEN hospitals have, in aggregate, met or exceeded the Partnership's 40 percent improvement goal in two areas of focus and are making strong progress in four other areas of focus:

• Catheter Associated Urinary Tract Infections: 31% decrease for an aggregate measure of two indicators
• Central Line Associated Bloodstream Infections (CLABSI): 40% decrease for an aggregate measure of four indicators
• Early Elective Delivery (EED): 78% decrease for an aggregate measure of two indicators
• Falls: 30% decrease for an aggregate measure of six indicators
• Pressure Related Ulcers (PrU): 39% decrease for an aggregate measure of six indicators
• Surgical Site Infections (SSI): 39% decrease in abdominal hysterectomy SIR

VHA's HEN results are based on April 2014 data and confirmed by the Partnership for Patients Evaluation Contractor. It's important to note that the Evaluation Contractor used measures with at least 60 percent of VHA's HEN hospitals reporting data, and no more than 15 percent variation in hospital counts between the baseline and the current period, showing the largest percentage improvement from baseline in the topic area.

"VHA is extremely proud to have been selected as a Hospital Engagement Network by The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and Partnership for Patients. It is gratifying to see the results our HEN hospitals are achieving and it builds on our long-standing commitment to help hospitals improve their performance," said Dr. Keith Kosel, vice president and program director for VHA's HEN. "We hope that our overall network's results inspire hospitals that are not currently in a Hospital Engagement Network to join."

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently announced a new report that shows an overall nine percent decrease in hospital acquired conditions nationally in 2011 and 2012 including reductions in adverse drug events, falls, infections, and other forms of hospital-induced harm. HHS estimates that its public-private partnerships including efforts from the federal Partnership for Patients initiative, Hospital Engagement Networks and others, have prevented nearly 15,000 deaths in hospitals, and avoided 560,000 patient injuries and saved approximately $4 billion in health spending over the same period.

VHA's HEN has provided more than 4,000 individualized performance improvement coaching sessions and 1,000 on-site visits to help its network of hospitals work through any obstacles to improvement. In addition, VHA has hosted more than 200 educational events that have attracted more than 13,500 participants.

VHA's HEN will continue to work with hospitals to make care safer, more reliable, and less costly by meeting the goals set by the Partnership for Patients. Specific programs include:

• A continued focus on hospitals' frontline staff through VHA's Rapid Adoption Networks™, a proprietary improvement framework to drive reductions in patient harm.
• Increased focus on creating a culture of accountability from leadership to the frontline staff within hospitals to enhance patient safety.
• Implementation of a Patient/Community Awareness Campaign to educate expectant mothers and their communities on the health benefits of full-term pregnancies to reduce the demand for early elective delivery.
• Increased efforts to strengthen patient and family engagement through collaboration with nationally recognized experts.

For nearly 37 years, VHA has successfully designed, developed and implemented clinical and patient safety improvement collaboratives for its members. This expertise is also available through VHA's industry-leading clinical quality improvement tools such as VHA IMPERATIV™ and the VHA Leading Practice Blueprint™ library, and its peer-to-peer learning networks.

About VHA
VHA Inc. is a national network of not-for-profit health care organizations working together to improve performance and efficiency in clinical, financial and operational management. Since 1977, when VHA established the first hospital membership organization, the company has applied its knowledge in analytics, contracting, consulting and network development to help members and customers achieve their strategic objectives. In 2012, VHA delivered $1.9 billion in savings and additional value to members. Serving 5,100 health system members and affiliates, VHA represents more than a quarter of the nation's hospitals. VHA also serves more than 118,000 non-acute health care customers enterprise-wide. VHA is based in Irving, Texas, and has 12 regional offices across the U.S. VHA, together with UHC, owns Novation, a supply chain company, and aptitude™ , the health care industry's first online direct contracting market. VHA also owns Provista, a supply chain company serving the non-acute market as well as hospitality, education and corporate markets. For more information, visit www.vha.com and follow us on Twitter (@VHAInc).

SOURCE VHA Inc.