health care quality

Researchers who analyzed payroll-based staffing data for U.S. nursing homes discovered large daily staffing fluctuations, low weekend staffing and daily staffing levels that often fall well below the expectations of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), all of which can increase the risk of adverse events for residents.

A team of researchers from Vanderbilt Health and Vanderbilt University’s schools of Law, Medicine and Management has received a five-year $1.7 million research grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality of the Department of Health and Human Services to develop and test “safe-harbor” standards of care based on scientific evidence.

Three teams across Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt recently earned top-status Gold Level Quality awards from the Tennessee Initiative for Perinatal Quality Care (TIPQC).

The Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) has recognized Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt with a Pediatric Quality Award.

Improvements in how patients’ preventive health care needs are identified, documented and tracked are being implemented at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) through an initiative called Bridge, the aim of which is to increase the ability of both VUMC and the Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network to deliver care in a more cohesive manner rather than as a series of individual encounters.

Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt is one of only nine children’s hospitals in the nation, and the only children’s hospital in Tennessee, to be named a Leapfrog Top Hospital for 2016.

This week, Vanderbilt University Hospital (VUH) was awarded a Fall 2015 Patient Safety Grade of “A” from the Leapfrog Group, a coalition of public and private purchasers of employee health coverage that works to encourage health care safety, quality and affordability. This is the eighth consecutive time VUH has scored an “A.”