The Nursing and Clinical information you need to know

Introducing Patient Care Matters, a new addition to The Pulse, created by nursing and clinical leadership aimed to highlight patient care initiatives, relevant clinical information and important news that will support the mission of Cape Cod Healthcare: To coordinate and deliver the highest quality, accessible health services, which enhance the health of all Cape Cod residents and visitors.

Clinical Practice Announcement

INSULIN: Two-person verification

As we look forward to refining practice, leveraging technology and applying best practice, we have determined that independent double checks and dual signatures for SC Insulin are not necessary.

This practice was originally recommended by the Joint Commission in 1999. If we think about how nursing practice was at that time, a double check would have been necessary. Now we have the Pyxis system, the specific insulin is in a cubie, a patient and order specific label prints out and we scan our patient and our medication.

All of these technological advances increase our safety.

There is no evidence to support that independent double checks of SC Insulin decreases medication errors, on the contrary, this practice decreases nursing productivity by an average of 11.7 minutes per instance and contributes to late administration errors.

This practice was discontinued on March 2, 2020.

System-wide initiatives

Our system-wide focus for 2021 is to reaffirm our Pillars of Excellence and continuously improve how we care through Process Improvement.

CCHC Pillars of Excellence

The CCHC Pillars of Excellence are the foundation of what we do. Each of these pillars support excellence in care.

The CCHC Five Pillars of Excellence include

1. Safety and Quality: ZERO patient harm. Examples: prevention of falls, prevention of catheter associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI), prevention of Pressure Injuries
2. Operations: Processes that work each time. Examples: Timely appointments; Patients safely transfer through admission process; accurate specimen collection, labeling and resulting
3. People and Team: Satisfied employees. Examples: Nurse Residency Program
4. Experience: The voice of the patient.
5. Finance: Cost Effective. Examples: Evaluating Supplies, Decreasing Overtime 
6. Process Improvement

Patient safety is a fundamental principle of excellent patient care. One of the biggest challenges in improving patient safety is how best to implement evidence-based interventions and best practices in a uniform way across our system.

This year, the nursing departments at both Cape Cod Hospital and Falmouth Hospital will be taking a systemwide approach to process improvement. To make improvements as one.

Standardization is the process of developing, agreeing upon and implementing uniform technical specifications, criteria, methods, processes, designs or practices that can increase compatibility, interoperability, safety, repeatability and quality.

Process standardization is the specification and communication of a process at a level of detail sufficient to permit consistent and verifiable implementation by different users at different times and in different settings. Standardization reduces variation.

It's time to:

• Standardize processes across Cape Cod Healthcare
• Form new Process Improvement Teams
• Renew our focus on patient safety and quality
• Say goodbye to, “…Because we’ve always done it that way.”
• Welcoming, “Let’s look for new ways to be better every day.’
• Striving for excellence in everything we do

2021 CCH/FH Systemwide Patient Care Initiatives

1. Falls Prevention- Goal: ZERO
2. CAUTI (Catheter Associated Urinary Tract Infections)- Goal: ZERO
3. CLABSI (Central Line Associate Bloodstream Infections) Goal: ZERO
4. The facilitation of early discharges

Join a PI Team and be a part of the solution!

Thanks to you…

Thank you to the 70+ volunteers, many of whom stood in freezing temperatures, rain and snow to vaccinate our coworkers and thousands of members of our community.

You have made the light at the end of the tunnel that much brighter.

Patient Care Matters is produced by Cynthia Marlin, MS-MHA, RN, ONC, VP of Patient Care, Chief Nursing Officer of FH; Judy Quinn, MSN, RN-BC, VP of Patient Care, Chief Nursing Officer, CCH; Mary Johnson, MSN, RN, Associate VP of Nursing and Emergency Services, CCH; Jane Johnson, Executive Director, Critical Care and Perioperative Services, CCH; and Lori Jewett, MSN, RN, Chief Operating Officer, CCHC, Senior Vice President of Operations of CCHC.