National Initiatives/Local Initiatives

Institute for Healthcare Improvement 100,000 Lives Campaign

As part of a nationwide collaborative involving 3,000 participating hospitals, Allegheny General Hospital’s 100,000 Lives Campaign is working to improve patient safety and prevent avoidable deaths by establishing best practice models in health care. In its 2006 campaign progress report, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) lauded AGH for leadership in the development of protocols that have significantly reduced the incidence of central line associated bloodstream infections (CLI) and ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP) in the hospital’s medical intensive care unit (MICU) and coronary care unit (CCU).

Institute for Healthcare Improvement 5 Million Lives Campaign

Also from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), the 5 Million Lives Campaign focuses on the prevention of patient harm. Allegheny General Hospital is pleased to once again participate in this important initiative from IHI.

Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4)

The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council is an is an independent state agency that reports health care costs and various measures relating to the quality of health care for Pennsylvania hospitals. Health-care consumers can log onto their Web site and view reports on a wide variety of topics such as hospital-acquired infections, diabetes care and hip and knee replacements.

Leapfrog

The Leapfrog Group is a consumer-driven organization representing corporations that buy health care to “initiate breakthrough improvements in the safety, quality and affordability of healthcare”. One strategy they use to achieve this goal is to have hospitals respond to the voluntary Leapfrog Group Hospital Quality and Safety Survey. This survey measures each hospital’s compliance with four major Leaps or initiatives: the implementation of Computer Physician Order Entry (CPOE), ICU Physician Staffing (IPS), Evidence-Based Hospital Referral (EBHR) and a Safe Practices Score (SPS), which is based on 27 National Quality Forum (NQF) endorsed safe practices. AGH submitted this survey in June 2007 and realized an overall point total for the Safe Practices Score of 974; where a score of 1,000 represents the highest points possible. AGH ranks 52nd out of 1,216 reporting hospitals in this measure. Click here to see the complete Leapfrog survey results for AGH or go to their website at: http://www.leapfroggroup.org/home, choose “Click here for our hospital quality ratings.”