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Nominate Your Organization for a HealthStream Award of Excellence Through June 22, 2018

April 1, 2021
April 1, 2021

HealthStream’s Awards of Excellence® spotlight innovative programs and superior leadership that support organizational excellence, workforce development, employee engagement, and more. It’s an honor to recognize customers’ dedication to methods and processes that lead to quality improvements and improved patient outcomes. 

Excellence through Innovation® Awards

These awards recognize our customers whose initiatives have led to improved outcomes, including, but not limited to, process improvements (e.g., time savings, cost savings, streamlined onboarding, performance appraisal innovations, etc.) or quality improvements.

Award winners in each category will:

  • Describe a challenge or obstacle facing their organization.
  • Identify the HealthStream solution(s) they used to help them in their efforts.
  • Document the outcome that resulted.

Award Winners will be recognized in each of the following categories:

  • Talent Management
    Initiatives to support improvements in performance, competency, and learning management; improvements in employee engagement; better alignment of HR and clinical departments.
  • Credentialing/Privileging 
    Initiatives to improve efficiencies related to the credentialing process.
  • Resuscitation
    Education/Training initiatives to support Quality CPR and improve resuscitation rates.
  • Compliance
    Initiatives to improve compliance and better track required training to simplify regulatory audits.
  • Clinical Development
    Initiatives that promote lifelong learning, skills development, and career advancement for clinicians.
  • Revenue Management
    Initiatives that use education and workforce development to strengthen the business side of healthcare operations.
  • Authoring/Instructional Design
    Self-authored courses developed to support initiatives across your organization.

All entries will be reviewed by an advisory panel of industry experts. Submissions must include the use of at least one HealthStream, HCCS, or Verity solution. To inspire your nomination, here are last year’s award winners:

Organization: Yale New Haven Health

Category: Authoring/Instructional Design

The Yale New Haven Health (YNHH) system is the primary teaching hospital for Yale School of Medicine and Yale School of Nursing and includes hospitals, physicians, and related health services throughout Connecticut and into New York and Rhode Island. The Magnet-certified hospital is accredited by the Joint Commission and is a Level I trauma center for adult and pediatric patients.

An ongoing challenge was the hospital’s Safe Sleep for Infants policy, which strictly limits crib contents while a child is unsupervised, was not being strictly followed by clinical staff.  A mandatory education module was developed and assigned via HealthStream, and YNHH tracked staff compliance, to ensure everyone completed it. In the course, a virtual crib was represented that contained an infant patient and several items that staff could remove, watching them fly from the room as the course progressed. After the assignment of training, pediatric managers reported a 92% decline in instances of foreign items found in cribs. This significant reduction has significantly improved care for their most vulnerable patients. Delivering the education via HealthStream alleviated any need for live educational sessions, nor was printing several hundred copies of the policy now necessary. These two factors were estimated to have saved the hospital approximately $75,000 in wages, facilities use, and materials.

Organization: Forrest General Hospital

Category: Clinical Development

Forrest General Hospital is a 512 bed facility with 3500 employees that serves as the centerpiece for Forrest Health System. DNV Accredited, a Level II Trauma Center, and serving as a Primary Stroke Center, Forrest is the first hospital in Mississippi to be designated as a Baby Friendly Hospital.

To continue its commitment to high quality care, Forrest needed to boost clinical competency skills among staff. The organization created a Simulation Center to advance skills though interactivity in a safe educational environment. From initial volumes of 10-20 trainees monthly, Forrest currently sees approximately 200 employees per month for a simulation, concentrated among new hire Nurses and Acute Care Techs, Nurse Residents, and Family Practice Residents. Staff are now required to demonstrate care competency for such situations and conditions as CLABSIs, CAUTIs, restraints, and patient declines. They have also instituted unit-specific competencies, such as Postpartum Hemorrhage and Shoulder Dystocia for Labor and Delivery staff. Codes have been a strong focus—Forrest has held Mock Codes simulations for six of their units, allowing each unit to develop a way to respond to Codes, from assigned roles to working across shift changes. The Simulation Center set-up makes running transcripts to document education and competency very easy with HealthStream Learning Center reports.

Organization: Yale New Haven Health

Category: Compliance

The Yale New Haven Health (YNHH) system is the primary teaching hospital for Yale School of Medicine and Yale School of Nursing and includes hospitals, physicians, and related health services throughout Connecticut and into New York and Rhode Island. The Magnet-certified hospital is accredited by the Joint Commission and is a Level I trauma center for adult and pediatric patients. Performance, documentation, and reference inconsistencies in aspiration risk assessment procedures was having an impact on patient care and documentation across the health system. 

To standardize the Aspiration Risk Assessment procedure for all locations and providers on the Yale Swallow Protocol, YNHH shot a video with the protocol’s creator, demonstrating implementation of the Yale Swallow Protocol with a patient who died, as well as with a patient who did not. Watching side-by-side passing and failing gave clinical staff a clear point of reference. As the centerpiece of a HealthStream Learning Center learning module, the video was assigned to clinical staff across all YNHH locations. Completion of the module was tracked to be easily provided to regulatory bodies who may audit compliance. The standardization goal was achieved without live educational sessions that would have involved thousands of employees. Internal figures estimate that the health system saved upwards of $2.5 million with online delivery. They also saw a dramatic decline in the number of inaccurate documentations with respect to aspiration risk assessment. A significant dip in the number of inaccurate assessments may indicate improved patient care as well.

Organization: HealthSouth

Category: Resuscitation

One of the nation’s largest providers of post-acute care, HealthSouth’s primary focus is on acute rehabilitation in 123 acute rehabilitation hospitals/units throughout the United States. The challenge for HealthSouth’s Western Division was the unsuccessful implementation of HeartCode in its 16 freestanding HealthSouth Acute Rehabilitation Hospitals across 6 states. Despite having HeartCode and paying for it, the hospitals continued to hold traditional in-person BLS classes in their hospitals for the majority of staff. These BLS courses varied in content and focus, so there was little standardization across facilities and a major concern regarding the quality of BLS education and skills being taught.

HealthSouth focused attention on the region to re-educate the hospitals and provide support for re-implementing HeartCode. A HealthStream consultant worked with each hospital Chief Nursing Officer to identify individual barriers in each hospital, including equipment issues, manikin repair or replacement needs, and Internet connectivity issues. Improvements were made for better Internet connectivity and reliability, appropriate physical space, storage needs, and overall program administration. Currently, all 16 hospitals are now using both BLS and ACLS courses and the Voice Activated Manikins for Skill Validation. HealthSouth has seen a dramatic increase in the use of HeartCode for BLS certification. Many of the hospitals have completely eliminated onsite classes for resuscitation. All Clinical Staff now take the HeartCode courses, and there is an increased confidence that HealthSouth’s BLS education program is consistent and ensures quality CPR.

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