Jun
6
Written by:
Covenant Health Systems
6/6/2012 10:39 AM
St. Mary’s d’Youville Pavilion, in Lewiston, Maine recently earned the prestigious 2012 Innovation Award from LeadingAge. LeadingAge is a national association representing 5,500 nonprofit aging-services organizations. Its members are dedicated to providing the services that people need, when they need them, in the place they call home. The Association recognized d’Youville Pavilion for its efforts and best practices to reduce patient rehospitalization rates.
In 2010, St. Mary’s d’Youville Pavilion embarked on a journey to reduce patient readmissions to the hospital. The process started with comparing existing practices against industry evidence‐based standards. A weekly work group was created to review hospital readmissions and to develop an action plan that would change processes and outcomes, improving the quality of care.
As a result of d’Youville Pavilion’s system quality project, its rehospitalization rate went from 16% in 2010 to 8.12% in the first quarter of 2012. This endeavor has been a great success and efforts continue to grow with further partnerships, physician to physician communication, and improving the facility’s ability to analyze data.
“Our learning, failures, innovations, and evolutions have reduced the number of patients requiring transfer to hospital for treatment,” said Phil Jean, VP of Elder Care Services for St. Mary’s Health System and d’Youville Pavilion’s Administrator. “Recognition of success from LeadingAge helps create a sense of accomplishment that is critical to sustainability of practice change. In working to achieve reduced hospital readmissions, we have also improved patient care and satisfaction.”
St. Mary’s d’Youville Pavilion, a 210-bed skilled nursing and rehabilitative nursing canter, is the flagship component of the elder care services offered through St. Mary's Health System. With a state-of-the-art rehab center, specialized memory impairment unit, skilled and long term care, d’Youville Pavilion provides residents with the most advanced technology and skilled nursing care in the region. More importantly, they offer respect, care, and compassion to every resident. The LeadingAge recognition follows other recent accolades. St. Mary’s d’Youville Pavilion earned the highest quality rating - five out of five stars – from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Maine Health Care Association’s (MHCA) Celebrating Excellence in Quality Award, the MHCA’s Celebrating Excellence in Innovation Award, and Dorland Health Silver Crown Award Honorable Mention.