Buffalo Hospital earns fourth patient safety excellence award
Buffalo, MN 06/21/2009-- Buffalo Hospital has earned a Minnesota Hospital Association (MHA) Patient Safety Excellence Award for its work on preventing wrong-site and wrong patient surgeries through the SAFE SITE initiative. The award is given to hospitals achieving more than 90 percent of the actions in the SAFE SITE Roadmap to a Comprehensive Safe Site Procedure Program.
“Hospitals that receive these awards are to be commended — the bar is set very high,” said MHA Patient Safety Vice President Tania Daniels. “Hospitals that qualify have achieved measurable and meaningful progress toward implementing best practices to drive down adverse health events.”
Patient safety is a top priority for Buffalo Hospital. The hospital has now won all four MHA Patient Safety Excellence Awards, including SAFE SKIN for preventing pressure ulcers; SAFE COUNT for preventing retained objects after labor and delivery; and SAFE from FALLS for preventing falls during a hospital stay.
“I couldn’t be more proud of our staff’s hard work and commitment to patient safety,” says Buffalo Hospital president Jennifer Nelson. “Patients can choose a big metro hospital for medical care, but they won’t find the same level of patient safety and personal care that they will at Buffalo Hospital, right here in their community. Our doctors, nurses and staff deliver the quality of care to our patients that they would want for themselves or loved ones.”
Implementing the SAFE SITE roadmap involves many steps, including creating checklists and audits, staff and patient education, including bedside verification to ensure patients are aware of risks and requiring surgeons to sign the surgical site.
“Once in the operating room, the entire surgical team takes a time out to verify the patient, procedure and surgical site just prior to making the first incision,” says Gretchen Frederick, RN, director of Patient Care and Quality.
In 2008, 3150 patients chose Buffalo Hospital for their surgery. Buffalo Hospital’s Surgery and Outpatient Center provides a wide range of inpatient and outpatient care. Surgical specialties include orthopedics, general surgery, urology, gynecology, podiatry and ophthalmology.
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