Here we have a outline of a template one can use to safely report your quality study indicators that align to the focus of the Covid 19 pandemic we still stress to resolve nationwide.
Covid 19 Pandemic for quality year 2022-
Due to the bewildering Covid 19 pandemic, the greater Los Angeles metro area was hit very hard for the number of reported cases of patients testing positive for Covid-19. With all the covid related mis-information in the social medium platforms, the INTERNET, the Fox News Station, covid 19 related infections and deaths continued to rise throughout much of the first half of the pandemic year for 2022.
Our organization has complied to all mandates the state of California issued in regards to masks, PPE usage, reporting mandates to the central health department, yet we were challenged to demonstrate full compliance in areas within our organization that we could monitor and give full advocacy to those areas. These areas are defined as the following:
Hand Hygiene - at first look at our numbers, our HH was pathetically low for a compliance rate. Coming in at only 44% of the time were we washing our hands as the CDC recommends. We tore apart the different processes for HH and we looked at the areas that we needed to ignite some culture change to help protect our staff and our patients from becoming positive for Covid 19 related illness or secondary dx that ultimately could cause the patient to expire. Much change was required in order to safely and effectively bring our compliance rate to a manageable number. (these methods used for bringing our rate up quickly can be found and read in our quarterly quality committee minutes)
Flu and Hand Hygiene
As it stands currently, our rates for the past year has been calculated to be the following:
Year 2022; 1st qtr @ 44%, 2nd qtr @ 57%, 3rd qtr @ 71%, 4th qtr @ 93%.
We summarize our HH studies with the following statements:
1. Staff have been very open to the changes in our HH program, education has been the key to getting our staff to 93% as of 4th qtr.
2. Practice makes perfect. With our surgical volume at an all time low in volume, staff do not get to practice the HH rules as often, thus more time is needed to perfect our process and raise our numbers to the established threshold of 97%.
3. The process problem prone area in HH that continues to haunt our perfection is the added washing of the hands before and after the gloves being put on and then being removed.
Covid-19 Vaccinations, Flu Vaccinations for All Staff- at first glance our staff (including med staff)compliance rate for everyone getting vaccinated for covid and flu was oddly low. At only 60% compliance, we saw that there was work to do surrounding getting staff vaccinated for these two contenders. Upon diving into the root of our low compliance rate, it was determined that many of the staff in whom were reporting not vaccinated, had indeed been vaccinated but rather had failed to provide the documentation we require for the vaccinated staff person. Once this issue had been resolved with
staff getting a document from their vaccination depot, our compliance rate was elevated to nearly 100%, with an outlier for one person in whom was pregnant and could not take the flu vaccination.
As it stands currently, our rates for the past year has been calculated to be the following:
Year 2022; 1st qtr @ 60%, 2nd qtr @ 75%, 3rd qtr @ 95%, 4th qtr @ 95%.
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