Carol Bock works in her garden pain free.

Commitment to Quality

Safety

St. Anthony's Medical Center and hospitals around the county took part in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 5 Million Lives Campaign to reduce medical errors. By focusing safety efforts on the six key areas listed below, we are committed to providing the highest level of care and saving lives.

Saving Lives

• stop medication errors
• follow heart attack treatment guidelines
• prevent respirator pneumonia
• prevent IV-catheter infections
• stop surgical site infections
• use rapid response teams

Improving Safety

St. Anthony's Medical Center has quality teams that monitor potentially high-risk safety functions. For example, the laboratory reduced communication wait time from 19 to 1 minutes through improved processes.

Other teams are:

• Infection Control Committee
• Adverse Events/RCA (Executive Session)
• Communications: HIM Committee Report (This includes the use of abbreviations and medical record reviews.)
• Medication Management
• Falls
• Restraints/Seclusion Use/Behavioral Management and Treatment

Information also is gathered through confidential channels, such as:

• risk management
• utilization management
• quality control
• infection control surveillance and reporting
• research
• autopsies

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