Mercy Celebrates Achievements in Save 100,000 Lives Program
Monday, June 12th
Cedar Rapids - Mercy Medical Center is celebrating its achievements as a participant in a nationwide initiative to save 100,000 lives by June 14, 2006. Mercy is one of 3,000 hospitals across the country to have joined forces in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s 100k Lives campaign, to radically reduce unnecessary harm and death in their facilities. This effort has yielded improvement on a scale previously unimagined in the American health care system and, perhaps most importantly, has introduced a new standard of care.
On June 14th, the hospital industry will come together to publicly announce its progress toward the 100,000 lives goal. The milestone is a direct result of having instituted proven clinical practices and methods.
The initiative was instituted 18-months ago in the face of some disturbing statistics:
- As many as 98,000 people die each year in U.S. hospitals due to medical injuries.
- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that two million patients suffer hospital-acquired infections each year.
- The U.S. spends the most money on health care of all industrialized nations, but performs more poorly than most on measures of health care quality.
As a participant in the 100k Lives campaign, Mercy Medical Center implemented specific changes in care that have been proven to prevent avoidable deaths. The hospital’s care practices have been tracked and measured as part of the overall barometer to gauge the campaign’s progress. Mercy is proud of its ability to have achieved a 6% drop in mortality since the initiative’s inception.
Improvement Tools
There are six specific areas that participating hospitals, including Mercy, embrace to prevent avoidable deaths:
- Deploy Rapid Response Teams at the first sight of patient decline
- Deliver Reliable, Evidence-Based Care for Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI) to prevent deaths from heart attack
- Prevent Adverse Drug Events
- Prevent Central Line Infections
- Prevent Surgical Site Infections
- Prevent Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia
Life Saved
When 43-year-old Ed Mims fired up his lawnmower on May 17, 2006, he certainly had no idea that cutting his grass would put him on the receiving end of this cutting-edge health care initiative.
It was a Wednesday evening after Mims got home from his job as a delivery truck driver that he decided his lawn looked overgrown. Mims was about halfway done with mowing his backyard, when his chest started to feel heavy. He kept mowing. His chest tightened and it became harder to breathe. Thinking it would pass, he continued. Finally, when the pain didn’t subside, he went into the house.
“I just didn’t think heart attack,” Mims said. “I just thought I had overexerted myself or that I was having an allergic reaction.”
Mims had the good sense to call his wife at work to tell her to come home, that something was wrong. He hung up before she could ask many questions, then he called 9-1-1.
When Area Ambulance Service arrived, Mims’ wife, Tammy, was pulling into the driveway as well. Paramedics immediately went into the house where they found Mims leaning on the kitchen counter, reporting that he was feeling a little better. Seconds later though, he passed out and his heart went into a fatal arrhythmia.
Paramedics used a cardiac defibrillator to shock his heart back to normal and then lifted him onto a stretcher and put him in the ambulance. Mims remembers hearing radio communication throughout the trip, paramedics relaying information to the health care team that awaited their arrival at Mercy. Paramedics assessed his pain level. They took an advanced EKG reading. They monitored his vital signs and heart rhythm closely. Plus, they gave him life-saving aspirin in the field. Meantime, doctors and nurses in Mercy’s emergency room started a chart, and alerted the cardiac team. The paramedics adeptly took Mims’ life into their own hands that day.
“Mercy is one of a few hospitals in the country that allow our paramedic specialists to perform and interpret advanced EKG’s in the field, and then radio in a cardiac alert to the emergency room,” said Dr. Brad Wisnousky, Area Ambulance Service Medical Director and emergency room physician. “The cardiac alert process that starts in the field embodies the concepts of teamwork, trust and unsurpassed quality care to the heart attack patient across many different departments at Mercy.”
When Mims came through the emergency room doors, he was immediately assessed by the emergency room physicians, nurses, EKG staff and others on the cardiac team that had been put on high alert by the paramedics. The cardiac catherization staff had already been called in to prepare for the insertion of a life-saving stent. Time from his arrival at the emergency room, to the cardiac cath. lab table—39 minutes.
“The national recommendation for a patient suffering from a large heart attack is to receive a life-saving cardiac stent within two hours of arrival into the emergency room,” said Dr. Mark Pospisil, Emergency Room Director. “But hospitals across the country are only achieving that goal 60% of the time. In this case, 39 minutes is a long way from two hours. As we work closely together as a team, we save precious time and lives.”
Mims would later learn the details about the teamwork that kept him alive. As part of the IHI 100k Lives initiative, and the commitment to deliver reliable, evidence-based care for acute myocardial infarction, the health care team in Mercy’s emergency room trusted the paramedics to interpret Mims’ EKG and give them the information needed to be ready to treat him when he rolled through the door.
“That kind of trust, cooperation, training and teamwork between paramedics and emergency room health care providers is credited for saving Mims’ life,” said Dr. Keith Kopec, Mercy’s Cardiology Medical Director, and Mims’ cardiologist.
“I feel I was very lucky. The guys who helped me knew exactly what they were doing. They were constantly communicating information about me to the hospital,” said Mims.
Tammy Mims said her husband has a family history of heart disease, but never imagined it would threaten Ed’s life at such a young age. “Having that technology and that teamwork in place is so important. Otherwise Ed might not be here today,” she said.
Gauging Success
Stories like the Mims’ are helping leaders of the 100k Lives campaign gauge the program’s success.
Participating hospitals are required to submit monthly statistics to IHI for the campaign period from January 2005 to June 2006, and the 18 months prior. And when the campaign ends, the commitment does not. Hospitals will then recommit themselves to operate according to these higher standards.
And the proof of the life-saving results of this campaign is close at hand. Ed Mims is now moving forward with preventative measures, knowing that a heart attack nearly took his life, but the people who intervened, with clear protocols in hand, gave him a second chance.
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