Impact of AHRQ’s Patient Safety Tools: Challenge Competition

AHRQ offers many practical tools and resources to help a variety of healthcare organizations, providers, and others make patient care safer in all healthcare settings. In an effort to better understand how using an AHRQ patient safety tool has resulted in safer care, AHRQ created a Challenge Competition and invited organizations to share their stories and provide evidence by associated process and outcome measures. These are examples of the type of return on investment an organization might expect when using the tool. Winning organizations each received a $25,000 prize for sharing their stories of demonstrated impact.

• Read the impact story: University of Missouri
  University of Missouri Health Care (MU Health Care) utilized AHRQ’s Preventing Pressure Ulcers in Hospitals: A Toolkit for Improving Quality of Care to decrease Patient Safety Indicator 03 (PSI-03) (reportable pressure injuries) by 92% and save an estimated $350,000 in avoidable costs. Implementation focused on MU Health Care’s 390-bed University Hospital, the only level I trauma center in central Missouri. Guided by the toolkit and implementing interventions spanning people, process, and technology, MU Health Care rose from the 87th percentile ranking of all-cause hospital-acquired pressure injury rates and PSI-03 among Vizient peers to the top decile over the course of 2 years. Their experience using this tool is summarized in "MU Health Care Uses AHRQ Toolkit to Reduce Reportable Pressure Injuries by 92%."
• Read the impact story: University of Chicago Medicine
  UChicago Medicine reduced venous thromboembolism (VTE) incidence by 30% in the perioperative patient population across their institution with the use of AHRQ’s Preventing Hospital-Associated Venous Thromboembolism: A Guide for Effective Quality Improvement over a 12-month period. The most visible advances occurred in the services and nursing units (a 50% reduction in general surgery, a 57% reduction in orthopedic surgery, and an 80% reduction in the medical surgical nursing unit serving the orthopedic, gynecological, and specialty surgical population). Their experience using this tool is summarized in "UChicago Medicine Reduces Perioperative VTE With AHRQ’s Toolkit."
• Read the impact story: Chesapeake Regional Healthcare
  At Chesapeake Regional Healthcare, AHRQ’s Preventing Falls in Hospitals: A Toolkit for Improving Quality of Care was instrumental in guiding the creation of an initiative entitled "Fall Free Friday" in December 2022. Initially focused on two medical-telemetry units and eventually expanding to include additional units, fall prevention compliance audits have taken place each Friday. The "Fall Free Friday" activities resulted in a 31% decrease in acute care falls from 4th quarter 2022 to 1st quarter 2023, with sustained success by not exceeding their quarter total threshold for 7 months. Their experience using this tool is summarized in "Impact of AHRQ’s Patient Safety Tools: Preventing Falls in Hospitals."