ChristianaCare Way Awards feature the year’s best performance improvement, quality and safety

The ChristianaCare Way Awards program annually challenges physicians, nurses and other caregivers to identify opportunities for improvement, then collaborate using the Plan-Do-Check-Act or Lean Six Sigma DMAIC models to develop and execute plans that achieve positive results, and submit storyboards to show their success.

Nearly 100 volunteer judges from across ChristianaCare identified the winning projects out of 80 submissions.

On January 29 Sharon Anderson, MS, BSN, RN, FACHE, Chief Virtual Health Officer, senior vice president, Quality and Patient Safety, and president, CareVio, announced the winners.

To kick off the celebration, former NFL player and Wilmington native Devon Still shared his personal experience in fighting alongside his daughter to “beat up cancer,” and discussed the determination and faith that carried them through the pain and past the many obstacles.

Here is a sampling of top teams along with a gallery of winning teams.

The President’s Award

The President’s Award honored “Improve New Provider Access to IT Applications at Onboarding.”

The problem addressed was that 63% of newly hired ChristianaCare physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners were not receiving access to all necessary IT applications by their designated start dates, resulting in the potential for significant patient safety concerns, workflow disruptions, increased workload for existing providers and decreased provider satisfaction.

• iLead, IT, Medical Affairs and ChristianaCare Hospitalist Partners created a formal onboarding process and intranet site and automated requests.
• The percentage of new hires with timely full access increased to 74%.
• The process now applies to all new provider hires across ChristianaCare’s 84 practices.

Extraordinary People Award

The Extraordinary People Award team’s project, “#HitMeWithYourFluShot: How Many People Can Christiana Vaccinate in One Day?” involved 11 departments in a concerted effort to vaccinate every ChristianaCare caregiver for the 2019-20 flu season.

Infection Prevention partnered with Emergency Management, Employee Health, External Affairs and many others to consolidate to a one-day flu shot campaign, fulfilling a dual purpose of conducting an emergency vaccination drill, while maintaining a 92% or better employee vaccination rate.

• During the 1-day event, 7267 (69%) ChristianaCare and 162 (29%) VNA employees, along with 1594 non-employed persons (including physicians, volunteers and retirees), were vaccinated.
• Nearly 300 caregivers volunteered to vaccinate or perform other duties. Roving teams visited 81 practices at 42 separate locations, traveling over 250 miles.
• Final vaccination rates were 93% for Christiana Hospital and 94% for Wilmington Hospital.

The Transformation Award

The Transformation Award-winning project, titled “Improving A1C Control in Primary Care,” helped improve the care of diabetics through better A1C control in four Primary Care practices that partnered with ChristianaCare’s Endocrinology practice. Their aim was to optimize the diabetes registry through attribution review, standardized outreach processes and partnership in education. The practices developed local interventions, including group medical visits and engagement of behavioral health.

• The percentage of diabetic patients with hemoglobin A1C levels less than or equal to nine improved from 62% to 78%.
• Diabetes registry accuracy improved by 11% and the number of patients overdue for lab tests decreased 50%.
• High hemoglobin A1C levels for the complex patients discussed with Endocrinology improved from 83.7% to to 47%.

The People’s Choice Award

The Transitional Medical Unit (TMU) created a central line-associated blood stream infection (CLABSI) prevention bundle with a blood culture algorithm that standardized care to meet best practice for ordering blood cultures.

This project was originally submitted, and won a Silver Award, under the mantle of Magnet New Knowledge, Innovations & Improvement — and captured the popular People’s Choice Award. (See photo at top of story.)

The team developed a report to track central line blood culture ordering, which was used to give real time feedback for drift in practice.

• CLABSIs decreased to one in 2019 from three in 2018. Non-evidence-based central line blood culture ordering decreased to 12 in 2019 from 44 in 2018.
• Cost savings associated with the reduction is approximately $90,000.
• As the People’s Choice Award winner the project garnered a record 918 votes.

Good Catch Award

MRI Technologist III Scott Thynge was recognized with a Good Catch Award.

When a patient arrived in Wilmington Imaging Services with a completed MRI safety questionnaire stating that he had no implantable devices, Thynge questioned the patient once more prior to performing the imaging.

The patient revealed that he had neurostimulator leads in his back. Thynge’s persistence in questioning the patient before the MRI procedure helped prevent harm to the patient.

We Care Award

A We Care Award was presented to three caring individuals for their awareness and actions in noticing a fellow human being in distress and coming to his aid.

Patient Guide Lisa Todd noticed a patient in a wheelchair in the lobby of the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute. His head was down and he was continuously moving his wheelchair. When questioned, the man gave his name to Todd but could not explain why he was there or if he was waiting for a ride.

Due to the uncertainty of his condition, Todd notified Cancer Program Clinical Director Cindy Waddington, MSN, RN, AOCN, NE-BC,  and Junior Board Volunteer Lyn Huber alerted Public Safety out of concern that the man might accidentally injure himself. The man was identified and Cindy contacted the patient’s physician who found the behavior unusual for the patient.

The patient became more agitated and an ambulance was called. Shortly after arrival to Emergency Department, he had a cardiac arrest and was successfully resuscitated. In addition, it was discovered that he was septic.

Here’s a gallery of all the remaining team photos of ChristianaCare 2020 Way Award honorees.