Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

9 PATIENT SAFETY & OUTCOMES operational work. From 2022 through 2026 year-to-date, this focused effort produced meaningful and lasting results at Ochsner Medical Center-Kenner: • Urinary catheter SUR reduced from 0.81 to 0.32 • Central venous catheter SUR reduced from 1.36 to 0.53 • Together, these improvements represent an overall 60% reduction in device utilization. David Priest, MD. Senior Vice President, Chief Safety and Quality Officer at Novant Health (Winston-Salem, N.C.): One of our most impactful patient safety initiatives is the Novant Health HeRO Playbook, a systemwide framework that aligns safety, quality and patient experience under a single, high-reliability operating model. e playbook establishes clear priorities, standardized safety behaviors and practical tools that empower team members across our hospitals and ambulatory settings to identify risks early and speak up to prevent possible incidents. Led by the Novant Health Institute of Safety and Quality, this work is reinforced by a strong culture of safety that begins on day one for every team member and is embedded into daily practice across the organization. Implementation of the HeRO Playbook has driven measurable gains across safety and quality metrics, highlighted by a 39% improvement in HAI performance, stronger performance against enterprise safety and quality goals, reduced unwarranted clinical variation, and increased reliability of safety reporting and learning supported by standardized dashboards and board-level governance. By pairing real-time safety data with strong leadership accountability and empowered teams, we continue to improve outcomes, strengthen trust and deliver care patients can rely on today and into the future. n Why hospitals are opening post-ICU clinics By Mackenzie Bean H ospitals are increasingly recognizing the value of dedicated clinics to support the more than half of intensive care unit survivors who experience "post- intensive care syndrome," KFF Health News reported April 10. More than 5 million people are admitted to intensive care units every year. A 2025 study published in PLOS One suggests up to 54% of survivors may develop cognitive, physical and psychological impairments after an ICU stay. Older patients are often at higher risk for such symptoms. With an estimated 70% to 90% of adults now surviving ICU stays, this means the share of patients experiencing post- intensive care syndrome, or PICS, is growing. About 35 hospitals nationwide have opened post-ICU clinics where multidisciplinary teams monitor and treat conditions associated with the syndrome, such as delirium, memory issues, muscle weakness and post-traumatic stress disorder. Alongside treatment, the clinics offer support groups for patients and families, and care team members discuss patients' preferences if they ever require another ICU stay. Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University Medical Center has operated its clinic since 2012. Pittsburgh-based UPMC launched its Critical Illness Recovery Center in 2018, and New Haven, Conn.-based Yale Medicine unveiled its own in 2022. The organizations also follow six practices recommended by the Society of Critical Care Medicine to reduce post-ICU symptoms. Efforts include using lighter sedation, earlier ventilator weaning and promoting patient mobility. n Healthcare's culture of silence is breaking: 4 notes By Elizabeth Gregerson N early one-third of clinicians say they now speak up when witnessing potentially harmful behavior by colleagues — up from 10% in 2005 — highlighting both progress and persistent safety culture gaps, according to 2025 survey data published March 26 in the American Journal of Critical Care. e 2025 survey, led by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses as a follow-up to the landmark 2005 Silence Kills study, asked more than 3,500 healthcare professionals how they responded to potentially harmful behavior as well as how those experiences affected patient care and clinical innovation. Here are four things to know from the survey data: 1. In the survey, 40% of respondents said they reported witnessing broken rules and 22% reported witnessing mistakes weekly. Of those respondents, 47% confronted the offender to express their concerns over broken rules and 53% over mistakes. 2. Respondents said they were less likely to confront colleagues for incompetence, lack of support, disrespect, poor teamwork, bias and micromanagement. 3. Organizations that encouraged speaking up, reminding, accountability and challenging assumptions had 20 times more healthcare workers who embraced new tools and technology and were 2.5 times more proactive regarding patient outcomes and care quality. 4. "Speaking up continues to be the vehicle for shaping the norms that govern behavior and results in healthcare," Vicki Good, DNP, RN, the AACN's chief clinical officer, said in an April 21 news release. "Conversely, a failure to speak up indicates an absence of healthy norms that will inevitably impact patient safety and staff outcomes." n

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