5 Paths to Better Clinical Outcomes

Here's how hospitals and healthcare systems have cut sepsis mortality, reduced post-discharge costs, and lowered ED usage—without breaking the bank.

In today's healthcare environment, an organization's success often hinges on patient outcome measures such as rates of readmission, hospital-acquired infections, and avoidable medical errors.

While there's no one-size-fits-all fix to these issues, HealthLeaders Media editors have written extensively about many programs, care models, interventions, and research that offer promising solutions.   

Here are five articles to help CNOs discover ways to improve clinical outcomes:

1. How Ohio Hospitals Are Tackling Sepsis

Sepsis is deadly, costly, and all too common. So why was a rise in sepsis rates at Ohio hospitals seen as a positive development?

"Because we are encouraging people to identify it, we are not surprised that we have a more honest assessment of the problem in our state," says Ohio Hospital Association (OHA) President and CEO Mike Abrams.

In July 2015, The Institute for Health Innovation of the OHA launched a statewide initiative with the goal of reducing severe sepsis and septic shock by 30% by the end of 2018. Nine months in to the initiative, OHA is reporting an 8% reduction in sepsis mortality.

2. New Developments in Nursing Roles and Care Models

During HealthLeaders Media's inaugural CNO Exchange in November 2015, nurse executives shared how they have redesigned nursing roles to better meet the needs of their patients and their healthcare organizations.

Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville, FL, has been expanding its use of nurse navigators to improve care coordination at the bedside, while Catholic Health Initiatives of Englewood, CO, is using technology to bring clinical nurse leaders located in a central command center into patients' hospital rooms, virtually.

3. Predictive Data Cuts Mortality by 30%

Have you ever felt like a patient was "off," but didn't have the data to justify that gut feeling?

At Connecticut's Yale-New Haven Hospital, nurses can use predictive data to identify subtle changes in a patient's condition and intervene before deterioration occurs.

Thanks to a nursing SWAT team's monitoring of predictive data, YNHH saw a 30% drop in patient mortality over a 15-month period.

4. Hospital Cuts Readmissions in Half With The Help of College Students

It's possible to improve patient outcomes without hiring an army of staff members.

Patients enrolled in Wooster (OH) Community Hospital's Community Care Network, a program that trains and uses college students as community health workers, reduced ED usage by 26%, and their readmission rates dropped by 51%.

"You don't need to have a whole bunch of RNs out there," says AlexSandra Davis, RN, BSN, manager of the Community Care Network.

5. NP Care Model Drastically Lowers Heart Failure Readmissions

Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, NJ, has had great success using the NP Care Model to improve patient outcomes.

In 2012, Judith Kutzleb, RN, DNP, CCRN, CCA, APN-C, vice president of advanced practice professionals at Holy Name, helped launch the program, which originally focused on heart failure patients. Over a 12-month period, 30-day readmission rates dropped to 8% from 26%.

Healthcare costs for the group of 312 patients receiving care via The NP Care Model totaled $311,818 during the 30 days after discharge. The 30-day post-discharge cost of care for this patient population prior to the model's implementation was $1,019,405.

The results have spurred Holy Name to add advanced practice providers to more of the medical center's service lines including cardiology, chronic care management, oncology, and genetics.

For more on how nurse practitioners can improve clinical outcomes, join Judith Kutzleb, RN, DNP, CCRN, CCA, APN-C, Vice President of Advanced Practice Professionals at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, NJ, for the HealthLeaders Media webcast, "Improving Clinical Outcomes through Advanced Practice Nurses," on August 31 from 1:00 to 2:00 pm ET.