EL CENTRO – October 8, 2019 – El Centro Regional Medical Center
(ECRMC) continues to work on advancing patient safety and quality of care
for the region. Recently the hospital welcomed visitors Robert Imhoff,
new President of the Hospital Quality Institute and Barbara Abeling, Safety
and Reliability Advisor for the California Hospital Patient Safety Organization
(CHPSO) to meet staff and discuss working together in order to continue
improving services.
Imhoff and Abeling toured the facility and met with Nicole Amidon, Director
of Quality Risk Management for ECRMC, and her team to discuss how the
organizations can work more closely together to help reduce and eliminate
preventable harm to patients and improve overall quality of care.
“ECRMC prides itself on quality of care and patient safety,”
said Amidon. “There is always room for improvement and we believe
working with the Hospital Quality Institute and CHPSO we can make ECRMC
even better for our patients and the community as a whole.”
The hospital has been a member of CHPSO since 2009. This partnership is
a coordinated effort for statewide impact, which aims to achieve zero
defects, optimize clinical effectiveness and enhance patient and family
experience in healthcare.
From here ECRMC’s Quality Risk Management team will participate in
CHPSO Safe Table Discussions to learn from other organizations and determine
how best to prevent harm to patients. By discussing challenges and seeking
solutions with other organizations ECRMC will be able to share lessons
learned and discuss challenges to find solutions.
“We want to take it to the next level, and lead a CHPSO Safe Table
discussion,” said Amidon. “By sharing our stories and lessons
learned with other hospitals within the Patient Safety Organization (PSO),
we hope to motivate and inspire others to promote awareness, develop safe
practices and reduce patient harm.”
About ECRMC
El Centro Regional Medical Center is an acute-care medical center, serving
the health care needs of the Imperial Valley since 1956. In addition to
the 161-bed hospital, ECRMC also owns and operates the Oncology &
Hematology of Imperial Valley, Wound Healing Center and outpatient clinics
in El Centro and Calexico. The outpatient centers provide exceptional
primary and specialty care for residents seeking enhanced well-being and
improved quality of life.
About Hospital Quality Institute
The Hospital Quality Institute (HQI) provides coordination and support
for improvement and harmonizes measures for patient safety and quality
improvement activities for CHA, Hospital Council, HASC and HASD&IC.
The organization builds reliable and sustainable measures to gauge California’s
performance and identifies opportunities for focus and innovation.
HQI oversees and coordinates Partnership for Patient Experience (P4PEx),
HealthCare Reliability Organizing (HCRO), California Hospital Improvement
Innovation Network (CalHIIN), CHPSO Patient Safety Organization, the Healthcare
Associated Infections (HAI) Workgroup and the Hospital Quality Committee (HQC).
About CHPSO
Created in 2008 by the California Hospital Association, CHPSO is a federally
designated Patient Safety Organization (PSO) dedicated to the elimination
of preventable patient
harm and improving the quality of health care delivery. With over 400 members
in the United States, CHPSO is one of the largest PSOs in the nation and
is a trusted leader in the analysis, dissemination and archiving of patient
safety information. CHPSO collects safety event reports and other reports
of patient safety issues in a legally protected manner.
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