The third annual Quality, Safety and Risk Prevention (QSRP) Pursuit of Excellence Poster Session and Award Ceremony was held Oct. 23 in Langford Auditorium.
More than 95 quality projects and initiatives from across Vanderbilt University Medical Center were submitted for awards. Each submission went through four rounds of judging, including an evaluation by a quality professional, an executive leader, and a research professional or Patient and Family Advisory Council representative.
This year, 24 finalists were invited to share their work at the poster session immediately prior to the award ceremony. Winners were announced for each of VUMC’s major clinical entities, along with a VUMC Project of the Year. Winners received their awards from Jenny Slayton, DNP, RN, Senior Vice President for Quality, Safety and Risk Prevention, and Cecelia Theobald, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President for Clinical Affairs.
The event was combined with celebration of this year’s honorees of VUMC’s Safety Superhero and Good Catch programs. The Safety Superhero program encourages staff and faculty at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt to nominate their front-line peers for demonstrating safety skills and preventing harm to patients, and the Good Catch program provides similar recognition to front-line workers across the rest of VUMC. With over 300 Good Catch or Safety Superhero honorees during fiscal year 2025, many attended the event to celebrate share their stories, and participate in a raffle for honorees.
The program at Langford began with a safety message from a patient’s perspective, delivered by sepsis survivor Kathy Burns, a retired clinical nurse specialist from the cardiovascular intensive care unit at Vanderbilt University Hospital.
Winners of the 2025 QSRP Pursuit of Excellence Awards
- Project of the Year: “Improving Sepsis Care in the VUH Emergency Department,” submitted by Chris Champion, MD, MBA, on behalf of the sepsis team in the Adult ED at Vanderbilt University Hospital.
- Vanderbilt Bedford Hospital, Sara Childress: “Throughput Time for ED Admissions.”
- Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital, Andrea Glover, BSN, RN, Fredia Fischer, BSN, RN: “Dysphagia Screening in Stroke Patients.”
- Vanderbilt Tullahoma-Harton Hospital, Caleb Bailey, MD: “Improving 3-Hour Sepsis Bundle Compliance in the Community Emergency Departments.”
- Vanderbilt Psychiatric Hospital, Connie Hare, MSN, RN, PMH-BC, Drew Hawkins, Vincent Miller: “Shift Happens! Shifting Attitudes to Manage Conflict Within Your Team.”
- Vanderbilt University Hospital, Chris Champion, MD, MBA, on behalf of the sepsis team in the Adult ED: “Improving Sepsis Care in the VUH Emergency Department.”
- Vanderbilt Health Services, Catherine Wiggleton, MD, Kellie Maze: “Early Initiation of HPV Vaccination to Improve Series Completion.”
- Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, Madeline Cason, Allison Weatherly, MD: “Pediatric Health Assessment Tracker: A Quality Improvement Initiative to Obtain Weights Consistently and Appropriately in a Tertiary Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.”
- Adult Ambulatory Care, Julie Jenkins, MSN, RN: “Enhancing Accuracy and Efficiency in New Patient Record Acquisition.”
