LifePoint Health, of which Clark Regional is a part, has been named the recipient of the 2017 John M. Eisenberg Award for Innovation in Patient Safety at the Local Level. Presented annually by The Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum (NQF), the prestigious Eisenberg Awards acknowledge major achievements in healthcare quality and patient safety.

The first investor-owned health system to earn an Eisenberg Award, LifePoint is being recognized for its National Quality Program, a structured process for ensuring consistent, high standards of quality and patient safety. Created in partnership with Duke University Health System, this program has led to significant enhancements across the LifePoint network, including a more than 60 percent improvement in aggregate patient safety. Clark Regional is enrolled and actively participating in this program.

In fact, Clark Regional earned esteemed designation as a Duke LifePoint Quality Affiliate in 2016 for implementing a number of best practices and launching new initiatives as part of this program to engage patients and families, enhance patient safety and improve quality care.

“We are so proud to be part of an organization like LifePoint that is deeply committed to providing high quality care and ensuring the safety of all patients,” said Robert Parker, chief executive officer of Clark Regional Medical Center. “Through the National Quality Program, our team has worked closely with Duke and LifePoint quality coaches to further strengthen our culture of safety, continuously work to improve care and enhance the patient experience for those we serve. As our community will recall, Clark Regional has a long history of quality leadership within LifePoint and was the first recipient of the Duke LifePoint Affiliate Designation.”

The LifePoint National Quality Program is a data-driven program implemented in LifePoint’s facilities across the nation. Rooted in patient-centeredness, the program is focused on leadership that empowers people, proven systems of performance improvement, and a culture of safety.

This initiative has helped create a highly-reliable culture of safety and drive enhancements across the LifePoint system, including a 62 percent improvement in aggregate patient safety compared to the company’s 2010 baseline and 12 months of zero central-line infections at 73 percent of its hospitals. Additionally, from 2010 to 2017, hospital-acquired infections at LifePoint hospitals’ decreased by 78 percent for urinary tract infections, 58 percent for sepsis infection, and 73 percent for pneumonia.

“The LifePoint National Quality Program has established at the hospital and system level an ongoing, measurable approach to driving sustainable improvements in patient safety, quality and patient experience,” said Rusty Holman, MD, chief medical officer for LifePoint Health. “Because of the diverse hospitals within the LifePoint system, this program offers many lessons for how healthcare facilities of all types and sizes serving a variety of patient populations can operationalize quality, create a national learning laboratory, and engineer a sustainable culture of safety.”

The Eisenberg Awards, launched in 2002, honor the late John M. Eisenberg, MD, MBA, former administrator of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Each year, Eisenberg Awards honor those making strides in innovating patient safety and quality at the individual level, local level and national level. The John M. Eisenberg Awards were presented at NQF’s Annual Conference in Washington, DC, March 12 and will be featured in the July 2018 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.

Clark Regional Medical Center is a 79 bed, community hospital which has served the residents of east central Kentucky since 1917. The Medical Center has more than 100 affiliated physicians, over 500 employees, and 100 volunteers on its staff.  The hospital was acquired by LifePoint Hospitals in May 2010, completed its relocation to a new, $60 million, state of the art medical campus in March 2012 and has recently expanded the Clark Clinic with an additional medical office building in 2017.

For more information, please visit http://www.lifepointhealth.net/news.