Tennova Healthcare – Clarksville: Our Commitment to Quality and Safety
7/26/2021
At the mid-year mark of 2021, I am especially grateful for the physicians, nurses and all our team members who work together to provide quality compassionate care for our patients and their families. The opportunity to care for friends, neighbors and community members is an honor. We exist for you, our community, and our team continually strives to provide a positive experience for everyone in our care.
We have taken numerous steps to develop a culture of safety and have increased our efforts to communicate effectively with clinicians, patients and their families. Nearly nine years ago, we started a journey to become a highly reliable health care organization. Our belief was founded in the fact that highly reliable health care organizations who deliberately focus on studying and reducing errors ultimately achieve better clinical outcomes. Since embarking on this path, our hospital has reduced serious safety events by ninety eight percent.
Our hospital also holds the distinctions of Wound Care Center of Excellence, Gold Seal of Approval for Total Hip and Knee Replacements, as well as Vascular, Mammography, Chest Pain and Cardiac Rehabilitation accreditations demonstrating the quality of our care meets national standards.
Hospital leadership — administration, medical staff and board of trustees — is engaged to monitor progress and identify opportunities for continued improvement. We regularly make investments in medical technologies and resources, this year adding 3-D Mammography and updated Urology and Vascular Surgical Suites. We have adopted evidence-based practices that support safer care such as electronic health records, barcoding systems for medications and surgical sponges, and monitors to alert nursing staff of a potential fall.
I am proud of our team for providing highly reliable healthcare, but there are always opportunities for improvement. We are ensuring patients are rounded on regularly by their assigned nurse, and every patient is being visited each day by both a nurse leader and a hospital leader. These actions support the delivery of high quality care and elevate the patient experience. Patients are also being engaged in their care through bedside shift reports and Patients and Families are having their voices heard through the Patient Family Advisory Council.
Our work to enhance quality care and safety for our patients is ongoing. I’m grateful for our team’s collective commitment to continuous quality improvement.
Alex Villa is Chief Executive Officer, Tennova Healthcare - Clarksville
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