Canterbury DHB Welcomes National Patient Safety Campaign

Canterbury DHB Welcomes National Patient Safety Campaign

Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) is committed to its goal of zero harm to patients and pledges support to the Health Quality and Safety Commission (HQSC) for its leadership in announcing its National Patient Safety Campaign today.

The campaign will focus in turn on the four key areas of falls prevention, healthcare associated infections, reducing harm during surgery, and medication safety. All four areas are existing priorities for CDHB in its overall strategy to reduce harm.

Stella Ward, CDHB executive director of allied health, says while CDHB has already made impressive gains in delivering safer care, ongoing improvement towards the goal of zero harm is a must.

“A national campaign is one of those opportunities for agencies and DHBs to work together and achieve so much more than we could individually,” Stella says.

“We are looking forward to sharing ideas and best practice strategies with other DHBs, and tapping in to the expertise and resources of the HQSC as the national campaign takes shape and builds momentum.”

CDHB gains towards zero harm to patients:

The community-based element of Canterbury Clinical Network’s Falls Prevention Programme, led by cross-sector falls champions, has already reduced the number of days over 75s spend in hospital due to falls by around 900.

Christchurch Hospital ICU has had one Central Line Associated Bacteraemia (infection) in the past 18 months. Though one is still too many, based on previous years, 20 such infections occurred annually. In the past 18 months, an estimated 15 lives may have been saved.

Hand hygiene practices contribute substantially to reducing healthcare acquired infections.  CDHB has been effectively promoting the 5 moments of hand hygiene and expects to exceed the HHNZ target of 70 percent compliance well ahead of the 2015 deadline.

In January 2010, CDHB started using the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Trigger Tool to review clinical records and capture harm rates from Adverse Drug Events (ADEs), and measure trends over time. 

Reductions in medication errors and improvements in efficiency have been achieved through the introduction of electronic prescribing, and electronic medicines reconciliation at each transfer of care. Internationally, both processes have proved successful.

In September 2009 all operating theatres in the CDHB began using the World Health Organisation (WHO) Surgical Safety Checklist. This tool ensures that every patient gets the correct procedure on the correct side every time.

ENDS

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