Samaritan quality indicators trending in right direction

MOSES LAKE — Some areas still need attention, but the yardsticks used by Samaritan Hospital to measure quality mostly are trending in the right direction, according to hospital officials. Director of nursing Becky DeMers updated the Samaritan board at its regular meeting in June.

The hospital evaluates quality control in a number of different areas, from patients who fall to patient scheduling at Samaritan Clinic. It's measured on a rolling 12-month average, and over the 12 months the number of patient incidents was cut nearly in half, she said. Hospital officials have been concentrating on patient falls and bedsores (also called pressure ulcers).

The goal is to have zero falls or bedsores, DeMers said, and the hospital hasn’t reached that, but the trend is improving when measured over the 12-month average. Hospital officials have done a lot of work in both areas, she said.

Most cases of patients falling happened on the way to or from, or in, the bathroom, DeMers said. To address that, nurses check on patients once an hour and, among other things, ask if they need to use the bathroom. Hospital officials also evaluated how the rooms were set up to eliminate anything that might trip people up when they walk around the room.

Patients who had joint replacements might think they could cross the room, “but they trip on the call light or they trip on the bedside table.” The emphasis on prevention is getting the attention of all employees, she said, citing a conversation with a housekeeping employee.

The hospital bought special equipment to help patients who might have a tendency toward bedsores, she said. In addition, patients are checked when they enter the hospital and at the beginning and end of each nursing shift.

Hospital officials also measure the number of patients who must be transferred. DeMers said it hasn’t changed much since she started at Samaritan. Many transfers occur because the hospital staffing levels are inadequate to care for the extra patients. The challenge, she said, is that if staffing is inadequate the hospital must hire short-term help, which is very expensive.

Eight new nurses will start in July, she said. Of those, more than half are new nursing graduates.

The trend for scheduling patients, however, at Samaritan Clinic is going in the wrong direction, she said. The clinic had new doctors who were still building their patient lists, but now those doctors are filling up most of their available time, she said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.