Safety and Quality Improvement at Strong

We work every day to make our best even better. Examples of how this works at Strong Memorial Hospital include:

Medication Error Control

CPOE

The National Institute of Medicine's landmark report To Err is Human revealed that nearly half of all medical errors were linked to illegible handwriting. To address this and other safety and quality concerns, Strong Memorial Hospital became one of a handful of hospitals in the nation to add a secure, online information system known as Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE).

In addition to eliminating hand-written orders, CPOE supplies an enormous amount of information that helps physicians provide safer, more efficient, and more consistent clinical care for patients. Among its many capabilities, CPOE:

Launching CPOE at Strong reduced by half the number of pharmacy orders that require a pharmacist's intervention to clarify legibility, check dosage, or spot other possible problems.

Electronic Health Records

Electronic health records (EHR) allow Strong Health providers to instantly access the medical records of nearly one million patients across 11 counties in Upstate New York.

The TouchWorks EHR reduces or eliminates the need for paper records and enhances physician productivity by automating the most common physician activities, including prescribing medications, ordering lab tests, viewing test results, and documenting clinical encounters. The system also offers enhanced patient safety measures, such as automated medical practice guidelines and alerts that warn physicians of potentially dangerous drug interactions.

The Five Rights of Medication Safety

Before administering medications at Strong, two nurses read and verify that a medication order satisfies what is known as The Five Rights:

“Smart Pumps”

Strong Memorial Hospital was one of the first hospitals in New York State to replace all of its intravenous (IV) medication pumps with smart-pump technology. Computer-driven smart pumps use technology to alert staff to a possible error before medication is administered. Learn more.

Ventilator-Associated Pneumonias

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement has recognized Strong Memorial Hospital as one of the first hospitals in the nation to virtually eradicate Ventilator-Associated Pneumonias (VAP) in its adult intensive care units. Strong’s team of doctors, residents, nurses and other staff have been consistently implementing a series of simple steps proven to reduce life-threatening infections in ICU patients. The Hospital Association of New York State, an advocacy group for the state’s hospitals, featured the VAP project in a video shared with other hospitals across the state in an effort to share best practices. In 2006, the American Association of Critical Care Nurses awarded its Circle of Excellence Award to Strong Memorial’s Medical ICU team, lauding its use of evidence-based research to set a new standard of care for critically ill patients.

Pharmacy Robot

Robotic systems in the Pharmacy Department at Strong store and dispense drugs for patients in the hospitals. The robots rely on bar-code technology to accurately identify, count, and package unit-dose medications. Learn more.

Dedicated Pediatric Pharmacy

A satellite pediatric pharmacy devoted solely to serving patients at Golisano Children's Hospital at Strong pays big dividends in terms of providing more timely and accurate service. Five specially trained pharmacists and three technicians staff the specialized pharmacy. At least once each hour, a member of the pediatric pharmacy staff visits the inpatient units, picking up prescription requests, delivering filled orders, and discussing any questions about medications or dosing with physicians, nurses, and families. Learn more.

(back to top)

Intensivists and Critical Care

Ahead of the curve in providing the highest level of medical care to the sickest patients, Strong Health launched its intensivist program. Today each of Strong's adult and pediatric intensive care units (ICUs) applies a multi-disciplinary approach to critical care by utilizing physician intensivists to lead specially trained care teams.

Intensivists are physicians who specialize in the care of critically ill and injured patients. After their initial training in internal medicine, surgery, or anesthesiology, intensivists become board-certified by completing additional training focused on critical care. Through this process, they become familiar with the complications that can occur in the ICU and are best equipped to recognize and respond to complications and to minimize errors.

An intensivist-directed ICU is a national standard set forth by the Leapfrog Group and supported by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) supports this initiative. National statistics show that patients in hospitals with an intensivist program have better outcomes and shorter hospital stays than patients whose primary physicians are not assisted by the specialized skills of an intensivist.

Intensivists offer patients many benefits:

Strong's Intensive Care Units:

(back to top)

Hospitalists

Strong's hospitalist program helps provide hospitalized patients with better, safer, and more personalized care. Hospitalists are board-certified physicians who specialize in caring for hospitalized patients.

If you are hospitalized at Strong, your primary care physician may elect to entrust your care to a hospitalist who can manage your care from admission through discharge. The hospitalists stays continuous contact with a patient's personal physician. Strong's hospitalists have extensive knowledge of best evidence-based treatment practices, care coordination, and options for post-discharge care.

Hospitalists' experience leads to more rapid, accurate clinical decisions, better patient outcomes, shorter hospital stays, and fewer readmissions. And their availability to patients, families, and hospital staff improves communication among everyone.

Strong hospitalists:

back to top