iQ - Clinical excellence
Best Care...Always!
We strive for a quality management system that is both sustainable and consistent
across all Life hospitals, and we are developing group-wide systems that measure
performance against the individual goals of the hospital and against other hospitals
in the group. Our systems are internationally benchmarked and improvement goals
are set as required.
We are continuously exploring ways in which to further enhance clinical excellence
in our facilities. One such corporate focus area, which demonstrates our commitment
to clinical excellence, is a programme to benchmark and align a number of key clinical
practices in our Life hospitals against international best practice. Specific focus
areas include ventilator associated pneumonia, central line related infections,
surgical site infections, catheter related urinary tract infections, and the treatment
of myocardial infarctions. Baselines, a standardised process for implementing and
measuring results, as well as compliance targets at both hospital and group level
have been established, and performance is reviewed regularly up to executive
level.
In addressing the challenges in healthcare delivery, Life Healthcare is expanding
its quality improvement role to the whole industry, including the national Department
of Health. We have been a key player in initiating the industry-wide Best Care…Always!
campaign.
Life Healthcare played a leading role in the health industry task team that launched
the Best Care …Always! quality improvement campaign in August 2009. The campaign
is modelled on international benchmarks and focuses on infection prevention and
antibiotic stewardship, with a commitment by the hospitals to defined quality interventions
that prevent patient risk as a result of healthcare associated infections. We have
recently added the Best Care ...Always! ‘preventing urinary tract infections’ module
to our initiatives. Our group will also provide pilot hospitals for the antibiotic
stewardship campaign, which has not been implemented in other international initiatives.
Through the Hospital Association of South Africa (HASA) we have participated
in the development of the revised core standards for health institutions that will
soon be published. We are actively developing solutions to healthcare delivery in
partnership with all roleplayers, as well as implementing the agreed initiatives
and measurements across Life hospitals.
Ongoing clinical excellence is attained by measuring our performance against international
best practices and enforcing compliance across all our hospitals. This has resulted
in an overall decrease in patient safety incidents within our group.
Patient health and safety measures
All patient incidents in Life Healthcare are reported and full investigations into
the root cause of the incidents are conducted by relevant managers. Remedial
action is implemented to avoid recurrence of similar incidents in other units. Incidents
are recorded on an electronic reporting system and are categorised by type of incident,
business unit and department in which it occurred. This allows for detailed analyses
of incidents in individual hospitals and across our group, and is used to identify
patient health and safety trends.
Patient health and safety scorecard results
The overall patient incident rate was reduced from 5,5 to 4,27 per 1,000 paid patient
days over the period October 2008 to September 2009.
Employee health and safety
| Measure |
Previous Year 2008 (Oct 07 – Sept 08) |
Actual YTD 2009 (Oct 08 – Sept 09) |
Target 09 |
| Employee health and safety |
| Employee incident rate |
8,4 per 200 000 labour hours |
7,99 per 200 000 labour hours |
8,4 per 200 000 labour hours or less |
Life Healthcare supports The Occupational Health and Safety Act in striving to minimise
the potential impact of hazards and prevent employee injuries in their daily operational
activities. Annual risk assessments and periodic safety inspections are conducted
to identify significant risks. Actions in mitigation of risks are implemented and
assessed through the quality management system.
Our group encourages the active involvement of every employee in occupational health
and safety. New employees receive induction training in quality as well as safety
awareness training. Potential hazardous conditions are identified and continually
reported through the quality alert process, while trends highlight possible new
risks requiring mitigating action. Risk management is closely monitored throughout
our group, making our facilities safer for our employees and customers.
Quality management system (QMS) group audit
| Measure |
Previous Year 2008 (Oct 07 – Sept 08) |
Actual YTD 2009 (Oct 08 – Sept 09) |
Target 09 |
| Quality management system (QMS) group audit results |
| QMS review audit result |
82.3% |
87% |
85% |
A detailed QMS review/audit is conducted annually in each hospital to ensure compliance
with group quality standards. Our hospitals and
rehabilitation units are assessed on overall quality management,
leadership responsibilities, and the quality aspects in the nursing, pharmacy, patient
services, rehabilitation and engineering departments. Results are benchmarked across our group and
form part of the performance management of senior hospital leaders. Criteria are
stringent to ensure full compliance to procedures. These audits prepare our employees
for external audits conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) required as part of
the ISO certification surveillance audits.