At the 20th Annual Ambulatory Surgery Centers Conference in Chicago on Oct. 25, Nicole Gritton, RN, vice president of nursing and ASC operations at Laser Spine Institute, discussed quality assurance and infection prevention.
Quality assurance is pivotal to patient safety and ongoing process improvement, she said. She shared some tips for ASCs looking to assess and improve patient care, organizational efficiencies and human performance.
1. Ensure quality assurance programs incorporate basic, essential components. Quality assurance programs might look different from one organization to the next, but they should have some common characteristics, according to Ms. Gritton. QA programs should be both data-driven and peer-based, she said.
Surgery centers should assemble a QA committee that means regularly and works as a team to determine appropriate processes. She said the process design should be written down and communicated effectively to the center's staff, especially the frontline workers.
"Those folks make your program work," she said.
2. Implement organized data collection and identify areas of process improvement. Once the QA process is determined, ASCs can start organized data collection and pinpoint areas that need improvement, she said. This should involve pulling data from documents such as adverse event forms and incident forms, tracking information and identifying trends. Ms. Gritton said providers should conduct internal benchmarking and aim for improvement.
"You're not just studying something for the purpose of studying," she said.
3. Select a QA program coordinator. Once the committee has determined the process, it's important to designate someone who will take charge of the QA program and be accountable for monitoring the program, according to Ms. Gritton.
"You really need to have someone who takes ownership of that program," she said.
4. Focus on infection prevention to improve patient outcomes. Infections must be tracked and analyzed as part of a QA program. Ms. Gritton said prevention is key to improved patient outcomes and should involve surveillance of infections, enforcement of appropriate staff behavior such as good hand hygiene and a sanitary environment.
She said it's helpful to designate someone as an infection preventionist who conducts quarterly infection control assessments and evaluations. That motivates ASC staff to stay on track.
"It's certainly an incentive if they know every month or every quarter they're going to get called out for doing a great job, or they're going to get called out for having opportunity for improvement," she said.
More Articles on Infection Prevention:
4 Key Steps for ASCs to Ensure Infection Prevention Programs Meet Survey Requirements
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Quality assurance is pivotal to patient safety and ongoing process improvement, she said. She shared some tips for ASCs looking to assess and improve patient care, organizational efficiencies and human performance.
1. Ensure quality assurance programs incorporate basic, essential components. Quality assurance programs might look different from one organization to the next, but they should have some common characteristics, according to Ms. Gritton. QA programs should be both data-driven and peer-based, she said.
Surgery centers should assemble a QA committee that means regularly and works as a team to determine appropriate processes. She said the process design should be written down and communicated effectively to the center's staff, especially the frontline workers.
"Those folks make your program work," she said.
2. Implement organized data collection and identify areas of process improvement. Once the QA process is determined, ASCs can start organized data collection and pinpoint areas that need improvement, she said. This should involve pulling data from documents such as adverse event forms and incident forms, tracking information and identifying trends. Ms. Gritton said providers should conduct internal benchmarking and aim for improvement.
"You're not just studying something for the purpose of studying," she said.
3. Select a QA program coordinator. Once the committee has determined the process, it's important to designate someone who will take charge of the QA program and be accountable for monitoring the program, according to Ms. Gritton.
"You really need to have someone who takes ownership of that program," she said.
4. Focus on infection prevention to improve patient outcomes. Infections must be tracked and analyzed as part of a QA program. Ms. Gritton said prevention is key to improved patient outcomes and should involve surveillance of infections, enforcement of appropriate staff behavior such as good hand hygiene and a sanitary environment.
She said it's helpful to designate someone as an infection preventionist who conducts quarterly infection control assessments and evaluations. That motivates ASC staff to stay on track.
"It's certainly an incentive if they know every month or every quarter they're going to get called out for doing a great job, or they're going to get called out for having opportunity for improvement," she said.
More Articles on Infection Prevention:
4 Key Steps for ASCs to Ensure Infection Prevention Programs Meet Survey Requirements
Patient Safety Tool: Ambulatory Surgery and Venous Thromboembolism
Infection Prevention Week: 10 Ways to Protect Patients From Infection
