Setting the Standard for Patient Safety
At Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare, patient safety is a key part of our commitment to quality. We have many initiatives that focus on patient safety:

The Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare Patient Safety Council

The Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare Patient Safety Council identifies and implements strategies to eliminate any barriers to the safest care for our patients. This multidisciplinary Council has representatives from our hospitals and physician offices.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) 5 Million Lives Campaign
Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare participated in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) 5 Million Lives Campaign, which was a voluntary initiative to protect patients from five million incidents of medical harm over a two-year period starting in 2006.

While the campaign has ended, we continue to follow the recommended best practices identified to save lives and reduce patient injuries:

• Deploy rapid response teams at the first sign of patient decline
• Deliver reliable, evidence-based care for Acute Myocardial Infarction to prevent deaths from heart attack
• Prevent adverse drug events (ADEs) by implementing medication reconciliation
• Prevent central line infections by implementing a series of interdependent, scientifically grounded steps
• Prevent surgical site infections by reliably delivering the correct perioperative antibiotics at the proper time
• Prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia by implementing a series of interdependent, scientifically grounded steps
• Prevent harm from high-alert medications starting with a focus on anticoagulants, sedatives, narcotics and insulin
• Reduce surgical complications by reliably implementing all of the changes in care recommended by SCIP, the Surgical Care Improvement Project
• Prevent pressure ulcers by reliably using science-based guidelines for their prevention
• Reduce methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection by reliably implementing scientifically proven infection control practices
• Deliver reliable, evidence-based care for congestive heart failure to avoid readmissions
• Get boards on board by defining and spreading the best-known leveraged processes for hospital Boards of Directors, so that they can become far more effective in accelerating organizational progress toward safe care

Other patient safety initiatives

• We implemented standardized colors for patient alert wristbands within all of our hospitals based on a best practice recommended by the American Hospital Association.
• All Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare hospitals follow the Universal Protocol for prevention of wrong site, wrong procedure, and wrong person surgery. The Universal Protocol is a best practice recommended by The Joint Commission and consists of conducting a pre-procedure verification process, marking the procedure site, and performing a time-out before the procedure.
• We use bar code scanning for medication administration to reduce opportunity for errors.