Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

26 INFECTION CONTROL & PATIENT SAFETY Joint Commission, NQF honor 3 Eisenberg Patient Safety, Quality Award winners By Megan Knowles T he Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum announced the three winners of the 2018 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards March 12. e award is named aer John M. Eisenberg, MD, former adminis- trator of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Since 2002, the annual awards have recognized healthcare professionals and or- ganizations for their efforts to improve patient safety and care quality. e awards are separated into three categories: individual achieve- ment, innovation in patient safety and quality on the national level and innovation in patient safety and quality on a local level. Here are this year's winners: • Individual Achievement — omas Gallagher, MD. Dr. Gallagher is a professor and associate chair of the department of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and professor in the university's department of bioethics and human- ities. Dr. Gallagher is being honored for his efforts to improve transparency in how healthcare providers disclose injury to patients who have been harmed during medical treatment. His contribu- tions include creating and directing the Collaborative for Account- ability and Improvement, which implemented communication and resolution programs at healthcare organizations across the U.S. • Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality at the National Level — Children's Hospitals' Solutions for Patient Safety. e network, which consists of over 130 children's hospitals in the U.S. and Canada, is being honored for its focus on advancing the culture of safety across its hospitals. e network saves approximately 10,000 children from harm while hospitalized. e network's members share data on 11 types of patient harm, including surgical site in- fections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, adverse drug events and pressure injuries and falls. • Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality at the Local Level — LifePoint Health's National Quality Program. is Brentwood, Tenn.-based program is being honored for its systemwide learning laboratory, which consists of a data-driven program to improve safety culture in its hospitals and decrease hospital-associated patient harm across 70-plus facilities in 22 states. Aggregate patient harm decreased 62 percent through these efforts, including 12 months of zero central-line infections at 73 percent of the compa- ny's hospitals from January to December 2017. e achievements of each award recipient will be featured in the July 2018 issue of e Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. n Northwell Health invests $3M into startup tackling OR disinfection By Megan Knowles N ew Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health invested ap- proximately $3 million into a startup project for a device that disinfects operating rooms and stretchers by using ultraviolet rays, according to The Wall Street Journal. Luis Romo, founder and CEO of the startup, called "PurpleSun," started developing the healthcare technology in 2011 during his time as a biomedical engineering graduate student at Syracuse (N.Y.) University. PurpleSun works in 90-second intervals and can eliminate almost all germs on a surface by using modular panels to enclose medi- cal equipment, including stretchers. Mr. Romo recently demonstrated the device in an operating room at a New York City-based Northwell Health facility. The de- vice disinfects equipment and sections of the OR while cleaning crews are working, which can cut the time it takes staff to clean and disinfect an OR by half, Mr. Romo said. Northwell Health plans to test PurpleSun in clinical trials across the system's 23 hospitals. n Antimicrobial hand wipes for patients as effective as soap and water By Anuja Vaidya A study published in the Journal of Hospital Infection examined the effectiveness of hand wipes for patients. Researchers developed a methodology based on European Standards EN 1499 and EN 1500. Twenty healthy volunteers had their hands contaminated artificially by immersion in Escherichia coli. Research- ers sampled their hands before and after the use of soap and water or hand wipes for one minute. The study shows the antimicrobial hand wipe was statistically non-inferior to the soft soap. Howev- er, a hand wipe with no antimicrobial agent was inferior to soap and water. Thus, the use of an antimicrobial hand wipe for one minute represents "an acceptable alternative to handwashing from a bactericidal perspective," study authors concluded. n

• Cover