Ohio's Children's Hospitals Release New Results of Collaboration Aimed at Saving Childr...( COLUMBUS Ohio June 4 /- The Ohio Chil...),Health

COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 4 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ohio Children's Hospital Association (OCHA) and its six member hospitals - Akron Children's Hospital; Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center; Dayton Children's Medical Center; Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus; Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, Cleveland; and Toledo Children's Hospital - today released new results of a first-of-its-kind collaboration to improve quality in children's hospitals.

OCHA and its six member hospitals created the Ohio Children's Hospital Association's Quality Improvement Collaborative (the Collaborative) in 2006. In its first initiative, the Collaborative focused on reducing preventable codes, or cardiac and pulmonary arrests, occurring outside of the neonatal and pediatric Intensive Care Units. As a result of its efforts, the Collaborative identified a medical protocol called a Rapid Response Team that to date, when implemented, has reduced incidences of preventable codes by more than 46 percent.

"While all six member hospitals have long been leaders in quality innovation individually, this is the first time nationally that a statewide group of children's hospitals has come together in a collaborative manner to improve quality in a measurable, meaningful way," said Bill Considine, president and CEO of Akron Children's Hospital and OCHA chairman. "We are thrilled by the solid, tangible results to date and look forward to identifying new areas where we can improve quality efforts."

For the Collaborative, each participating hospital adapted a Rapid Response Team model to fit within its own patient care environment and culture. Bedside caregivers at participating hospitals were empowered to quickly harness the expertise of this multidisciplinary Rapid Response Team when the caregiver determined that immediate intervention was warranted. Further, some hospitals created a process that enabled patient families to call upon th
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