Elliot Hospital’s Patient Safety and Infection Prevention teams are introducing the Harm Reduction Heroes program to reward the intentional efforts aimed at reaching zero patient harm among all patient units.
The Heroes program expands on the Certified Zero program which recognizes and rewards eligible units that report zero central line associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) for an entire calendar year. Qualifying units include the ICU, CICU, Fitch, Fuller, NICU, Pediatrics, and GPU.
The Harm Reduction Heroes program recognizes hospital units that track harm in categories beyond CLABSIs and CAUTIs and will provide periodic celebrations for milestones throughout the year. The departments that will be included initially are CDU, CICU, ED, Fitch, Fuller, ICU, Pediatrics, Maternity/Labor & Delivery, NICU, GPU/GBU, Pathways/PEP, and TJU.
The Heroes program is intended to provide an organized and structured approach for awareness and recognition.
The Certified Zero program will recognize 2021 achievements in early 2022. Harm Reduction Heroes is running a trial period from July to December 2021, with plans to officially begin the program in January 2022.
The categories for Harm Reduction Heroes will be based on each unit’s Harm Score measures plus other measures as defined by Infection Prevention/Patient Safety; as well as each unit’s input on what should be tracked, according to their specific patient population.
Therefore, the measures will vary by department and may include CLABSI, CAUTI, Clostridioides difficile (C. diff), ventilator associated pneumonia/possible ventilator associated pneumonia (VAP/ PVAP), falls, hospital-acquired pressure injuries (HAPI), sepsis, employee injury by combative patient, and violent restraints.
Surveillance for harm events will occur monthly. Each unit will have a tracking board to display its data by harm category monthly. Once per month, a Clinical Nurse Leader and Infection Prevention will visit each unit to update the board with the results. For each harm category in which there are no harm events that month, a celebration sticker will be awarded. If a harm event occurs, a number will be displayed on the board instead of a sticker, which will represent the number of harm events that occurred for that harm category that month.
Units that have zero harm events for a full year in any category will receive special recognition.
