At Lodi, a 14-member multidisciplinary team was formed to oversee Project BOOST implementation. The team was divided into sub-groups to work on the main components: Passport to Care Form, Target Assessment Tool, the Teachback process, and Follow-Up Phone Calls.
Soon, hospitals with unnecessary 30-day readmissions will be penalized. Some proactive hospitals are already tackling care transitions to reduce readmissions, improve patient care, and reduce costs.
Lodi Memorial Hospital in Northern California is one such hospital. The 214-bed facility has made preventing readmissions a key strategic goal for improving care, especially for vulnerable, frail elderly patients.
Lodi executives say readmissions are a challenge at the hospital because many different specialties and house staff are involved in the discharge process.
With many options from which to choose, Lodi selected SHM’s Project BOOST (Better Outcomes for Older Adults through Safe Transitions). Project BOOST, unlike other programs, focuses on first identifying system deficiencies, then building cohesive multidisciplinary teams.
“If you layer a clinical intervention onto a broken system,” says BOOST mentor Stephanie Rennke, MD, “success isn’t likely. Project BOOST helps the team map current processes, find deficiencies, assess resources, and redefine a culture of safety.
“BOOST starts with an assessment of how the system functions, and identifies its strengths and weaknesses so you can focus your efforts on critical areas for improvement and tailor the BOOST intervention to fit the unique dynamics of an institution,” she says.
Search for a Solution
No two institutions are exactly the same, especially when analyzing patient-safety culture. Project BOOST is customized to the needs of each BOOST site, which has proven useful to Lodi, as it found it had different needs than other hospitals.
“We chose Project BOOST because it seemed workable and implementable, while offering a less expensive and less complicated solution than competitors’ products,” says Valerie Cronin, Lodi’s director of utilization.
The BOOST mentor, key to this customization, provided Lodi with the reassurance that comes with working directly with someone who has faced similar challenges—not just theoretically, but also on the floor—and was willing to work with Lodi to develop practical solutions. The mentor provided reassurance, support, and perspective as Lodi walked through the BOOST implementation process.
Keys to Success
—Valerie Cronin, director of utilization, Lodi Memorial Hospital, California
Team-focused care, clear communication, and administrative support were keys to successful BOOST implementation at Lodi, says Cronin.
The house staff was overwhelmed, and adding a quality-improvement (QI) project to implement and manage might have seemed like an impossible challenge. By developing multidisciplinary teams, however, Lodi was able to distribute the tasks of implementation and began to recognize the value and benefit of Project BOOST, which already had strong support from hospital executives.
A 14-member multidisciplinary team was formed to oversee the Project BOOST implementation. The team then was divided into sub-groups to work on the main components of Project BOOST: Passport to Care Form, Target Assessment Tool, the Teachback process, and Follow-Up Phone Calls. The sub-groups’ main objectives were to ensure that BOOST effectively changed processes and work practices for a stronger and safer discharge process.
To support these teams and foster communication laterally among healthcare providers and vertically with hospital administration, Lodi established a structured meeting format, delegated task assignments for accountability, and appointed an implementation champion.
Capitalizing on the experience of its BOOST mentor, the Lodi multidisciplinary teams mapped out the process to assess threats to the system and opportunities for improvement, and began moving forward with implementable solutions for sustainable change.
