Quality and Safety
Merit Health Wesley is committed to prioritizing patient safety by reducing and eliminating avoidable events of a serious nature. The hospital has significantly reduced serious safety events over the past several years by embarking on a high reliability journey. The continued focus on ensuring high reliability in all aspects of our care delivery is woven into Merit Health Wesley's safety culture. This focus is also known at Merit Health Wesley as "Mission Zero." Zero harm from avoidable, preventable errors and omissions is the only acceptable outcome and we continuously work to achieve ZERO.
Our healthcare team's high reliability focus is clearly visible in day to day operations. It begins with education and training on the impact of high-reliability on keeping patients safe from avoidable harm. Specific safety and high-reliability education is provided during new employee orientation and at least quarterly thereafter. Frequent meetings about safety are held at the department level and Administrative Safety Huddles are held with representatives from all areas of the hospital. The safety huddles are key to good communication, the most common root cause to safety events in high-risk work environments.
Ongoing and continuous observation and monitoring of compliance with safe practices also occurs. Outcomes are reviewed with unit leaders in accountability meetings with the CEO, CNO, and CQO to foster leadership-driven process improvements. The hospital is a participant of a patient safety organization, has a Patient Safety Officer, and has a robust event reporting and classification system. A Patient Safety Committee, High Reliability Organization (HRO) Team, and the Quality Council are in place to also analyze and act upon safety and quality data for the purpose of driving continuous improvements, as does the medical staff's Peer Review Committee.
Another deliberate approach to achieving safer patient care is the passionate efforts of departmental safety coaches. Merit Health Wesley's safety coaches mentor front line staff to put safety first and practice the safe behaviors instilled in all employees for consistent practice.
Our work to enhance quality care and safety for our patients is ongoing. We are grateful for our team's collective commitment to continuous quality improvement.
For more information about the outcomes, visit Hospital Compare, a federal website operated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS). On this site, CMS publishes hospital performance data collected about indicators of quality, safety and patient satisfaction.