ROUNDS Preview: The High-Performance Clinical Organization

In just a few years, the No Harm campaign has allowed Henry Ford to move the safety needle in large and small ways. Comparing the first six months of the campaign (January–June 2008) with the last six months of 2011, Henry Ford Hospital had the following improvements:

• Overall harm has dropped 32%, which translates to 189 fewer harm events a month
• Infection-related harm has dropped 41%
• Medication-related harm has dropped 43%
• Falls have dropped 13%
• Pressure ulcer–related harm has dropped 21%

The No Harm campaign is also part of the larger context in healthcare: not just to reduce harm to patients for the sake of safety, but to reduce the resulting costs. From 2009 to 2010, HFHS calculated that total costs for harm were reduced from $38.6 million to $34.5 million, a drop of more than $4 million or $85 per patient.

Additional lessons in the full case study are Lesson 2: Target readmissions at the top; Lesson 3: Build a measure-driven physician network; and Lesson 4: Create a performance-driven clinical organization.

Jim Molpus is strategic relationships director for HealthLeaders Media. He may be contacted at jmolpus@healthleadersmedia.com.

This article appears in the April 2012 issue of HealthLeaders magazine.

Reprint HLR0412-10