For Our Physicians
Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento

January

• New Quality Teams - For 2012 we have approved the Quality Teams that will be our primary focus. They are: CLABSI (Claudia Crist), CAUTI (Tim Daly), Mortality (Shelly McGriff), MERP (Margaret Mette), Elective Deliveries less than 39 Weeks (Chris Swanson), Pediatric Asthma Bundle (Chris Swanson), Anticoagulation Therapy (Daryn Kumar), Sepsis (Cecilia Hernandez, M.D.), Aspiration (Laurie Rose and Kim Meyers) and Restraint (John Boyd). The names in Parentheses are the executive sponsors. If you are interested in joining a team, please contact the executive sponsor.
• SMCS Transition Planning - Transition planning for the new SMCS campus is underway! Detail highlights include:
  • SMCS contracted with transition planning consultants, RTKL, to provide expert guidance in planning the move.
  • The Transition Planning Organizational Structure consists of 13 Focus Groups (teams working on specific aspects of the move), as well as the Transition Leadership Team, the Transition Core Team and the Transition Oversight Group. These last three leadership teams are comprised of hospital administration and physician leaders. We are looking for additional physician participation on the following Focus Groups:
    • Furniture & Equipment
    • IT & Telecom
    • Operation Process Redesign
    • Move Logistics
    • Department Activation
    • Facility Orientation & Training
    • Communications
    • Bridging Cultures

    Please let Dineen Greer, Cecilia Hernandez, or Cindy Banta know if you would like more information. There are additional opportunities for physician participation through unit-based planning groups. The move is targeted for November 2013.

2012 Core Measures

As you know, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services require hospitals to participate in core measures for various clinical and disease states.  For several years now, we have looked at the surgical care improvement project (SCIP), which includes elements such as selecting the correct prophylactic antibiotic, giving it within an hour of surgery, providing post operative DVT prophylaxis, etc.  We have also measured processes of care for acute myocardial infarction, heart failure and community-acquired pneumonia.  These requirements are all part of the value-based purchasing initiative from CMS.  For 2012, there have been some additions:

The hospital is working on processes to ensure compliance to these measures.   As you know, the immunization process for influenza for children and adults has been in place for some time.  Pneumococcal vaccination has been in place for adults - it will be new to our Pediatric patients.  Obviously if the patient has a contraindication as specified by CMS, they will not be vaccinated. 

As you can see from this list, the Emergency Department throughput is an area of considerable focus for 2012.  For the door to troponins in less than 60 minutes, the lab is working feverishly on their end to come up with a rapid TAT for the test, and the ED is working on the specimen acquisition process on the front end.  The other metrics for ED involve the time it takes to see a physician as well as measuring the length of time from decision to admit to actual admission.  We will need everyone’s help with this metric -efficient ED throughput is dependent on having beds to which the patient can be admitted, timely response to the ED for admissions and moving the patient as quickly as possible to the appropriate level of inpatient care. 

I appreciate your interest in these new core measures.  For more detailed information, please click on the measure below:

• Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI)
• Emergency Department (ED)
• Heart Failure (HF)
• Hospital Outpatient (HOP)
• Immunization (IMM)
• Pneumonia (PNEU)
• Surgical Care Improvement Project (SCIP)