Quality patient care and patient satisfaction are hallmarks of Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin. We are committed to continually improving the quality of care we provide in our hospital and clinics. We take great pride in the dedication of our staff and are committed to our mission to “advance the health status of the individuals and communities we serve through high-quality patient care.”
When choosing healthcare services, we believe that you can make better decisions for yourself and your family if you have accurate information. To help you make informed choices, we report various types of care quality data to the public. Our quality data can help you understand how Froedtert & the Medical College compare to national guidelines and standards of care, and to other hospitals in Wisconsin and across the country.
To guide us in improving our services, Froedtert & the Medical College have embraced the Institute of Medicine’s six “Aims for Improvement” to provide health care that is:
- Safe
- Effective
- Patient-Centered
- Timely
- Efficient
- Equitable
Froedtert & the Medical College have coordinated our quality efforts with these categories. On the pages in this section, we identify which aim we feel is met by the reporting that we do. We hope that this helps our patients and customers understand our quality activities a little better.
Our quality is measured in our clinical performance, patient care outcomes, patient satisfaction scores and the major designations and awards we receive. We invite you to visit our quality reports and to talk to your family and friends about the care they have received at Froedtert & the Medical College.
Froedtert & the Medical College Quality Reports
Patient care outcomes for four Froedtert & the Medical College programs are listed below.
State and National Quality Reports
Froedtert & the Medical College regularly share information with organizations that collect quality data from hospitals in Wisconsin and the nation. Our data is then reported on these organizations' Web sites and provide information on care quality among hospitals that have volunteered to report their data for selected clinical areas.
Six Sigma Quality Initiative Reduces Errors
To reduce medical errors and improve operational efficiency, in 1999 Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin were one of the first hospitals in the country to adapt Six Sigma.
Developed and trademarked by Motorola and popularized by GE, Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating errors. It is considered to be the most sophisticated quality approach available. In 1999, Froedtert & the Medical College formed a consortium with the American Society for Quality to use Six Sigma to reduce medical errors and improve operating efficiency.
Since 1999, Froedtert has deployed more than 60 interdisciplinary Six Sigma teams and trained about 90 members of Froedtert’s leadership team. Many of the teams are composed of direct caregivers such as nurses, physicians, pharmacists, social workers, case managers and physical therapists. Patients have also served on many project teams and provide their unique perspective on processes targeted for improvement. Team members define why a project is important, identify the causes of a problem, assist with collecting data, analyze the data, arrive at solutions, implement the pilot project and maintain improvements.
After many years of experience with Six Sigma, many improvements have been attained:
- A Six Sigma interdisciplinary team won the Baxter 2005 Excellence in Patient Safety Award at the American Association of Critical Care Nurses National Teaching Institute and Critical Care Expo. The award recognized a pilot project in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit to improve patient safety related to insulin therapy. Following the pilot, all protocols and guidelines were approved and formally implemented.
- Telemetry response time has been reduced on the Cardiology floor to an average of 30 seconds.
- Inpatient falls have been reduced on the Blood and Marrow Transplant Unit by 52 percent and on the Hematology/Oncology Unit by 26 percent. Implementation of this program throughout the hospital is planned for early 2007.
Six Sigma initiatives completed in 2005/2006 were successful in:
- Ensuring that any additional findings reported in the final results of a CT scan are promptly communicated to the staff physician
- Decreasing wait time for patients in centralized registration
- Improving communication with the patient about the inpatient discharge process
- Reducing wait time for patients in the outpatient lab
- Improving accuracy, legibility and verification of patient identification
- Reducing medication turnaround time
- Improving glycemic (blood sugar) control in the post operative period
- Reducing wait time in the GI Lab and improving efficiencies in the Pulmonary Functions Lab
Through Six Sigma, Froedtert & the Medical College are creating value through better operational processes and improved patient safety and satisfaction.