McLeod Health is proud to announce that the hard work and persistence of its physicians and employees in pursuing perfection of medical care for our region has once again received national recognition. This week, the U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals Issue reaches magazine stands across the country and features the excellent outcomes on the safety and quality initiatives at McLeod Health as the cover story.

In the July 18 issue of U.S. News & World Report, McLeod Health is included in a six-part series on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's (IHI) National Campaign to save 100,000 lives by June 14, 2006 by participating in six major quality and safety projects. McLeod is noted for its lead in these initiatives as well as for its excellent outcomes and significant advancements in medical care and treatment of patients.

Two McLeod physicians, Dr. Andre Creese, Medical Director of the McLeod Emergency Department and Dr. Dan Fox, a McLeod Anesthesiologist as well as Angela Lowder, a McLeod Critical Care Nurse are featured on the cover. They represent many teams of people who have participated in Clinical Effectiveness waves and quality improvement efforts to provide the best possible care for patients at McLeod.

The 100,000 Lives Campaign and its six initiatives were announced in December by Don Berwick, President and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) during IHI's National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care. He called on more than 1,600 hospitals to join in the campaign to prevent unnecessary deaths by implementing proven techniques. In just six months, the 100k Lives Campaign has enlisted more than 2,300 U.S. hospitals in a commitment to implement changes in care that have been proven to prevent avoidable deaths.

McLeod Regional Medical Center, McLeod Medical Center-Darlington and McLeod Medical Center-Dillon will all be participants in the campaign. McLeod Regional Medical Center, which led two of the initiatives through the Pursuing Perfection project, has already implemented all six of the campaign's quality improvement initiatives. McLeod-Darlington and McLeod-Dillon will also participate in the initiatives.

Dr. Michael Rose, Chief of the McLeod Medical Staff, said, "It's quite an honor for us to be included in U.S. News & World Report, but beyond that honor McLeod has become a great place to work. I'm originally from Boston and I trained and worked at such prominent institutions as Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's Hospital but I've stayed at McLeod for the past 15 years because I've never experienced this level of attention and commitment to quality care."

The 100,000 Lives Campaign has already been endorsed by such distinguished health care organizations as the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations; and by such noteworthy health care providers as Ascension Health, SSM Health Care, and the Veterans Health Administration.

At the December announcement, Berwick cited McLeod several times for successfully implementing changes that are saving the lives of patients. "McLeod Regional Medical Center has cut inpatient heart attack mortality in half in less than a year from the U.S. average of 10 to 11% down to 5 to 6% by following proven protocols with patients having heart attacks." By developing protocols based on evidence, McLeod increased the percent of patients who received "perfect care" (all AMI key measures) from 80% in January 2001 to 100% by November 2003. This has reduced the McLeod average inpatient mortality rate for AMI to 4% for 2004, below the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported average of 7% in 2003.

"The McLeod Health Medical Staff and the McLeod Health organization have worked very hard on a special quality improvement program since 1998 to improve the care of heart attack patients," said Dr. Alan Blaker, Chairman of the McLeod Clinical Effectiveness Acute MI Committee. "The goal of this Clinical Effectiveness program has always been to make sure every patient receives state of the art, evidence based care. We utilized the medical evidence to establish standards of care for AMI patients. We're now being recognized nationally for our AMI care and the same philosophy is being adopted by IHI for their Saving 100,000 Lives campaign.

"We continually fine-tune our process to make sure every patient receives the best known care based on the evidence in the medical literature (evidence based care). Most hospitals have not been able to do this in a uniform fashion, like McLeod. I think that's why we've been successful and its how lives are saved," added Dr. Blaker.

Berwick also praised McLeod for leading efforts in medication safety and for serving as a mentor to other hospitals. "McLeod hasn't stopped at trying to raise the bar for itself. McLeod Regional Medical Center is actually training hospitals in its region."

In 2004, McLeod rolled out bar code technology at the bedside for medication safety, a system that has been adopted by only 2.5% of hospitals. In addition, McLeod also joined the ranks of less than 3% of the hospitals nationwide in 2004 who have started using Computerized Physician Order Management (CPOM) so physicians can manage the orders on their patients from anywhere in the hospital, their office or even from home. The physicians utilize hospital desktop personal computers (PC's) or wireless devices, such as mini laptops or tablet PC's.

"We are organizing a world-class campaign to elect quality," said Berwick. "The health care organizations that join this campaign are not only demonstrating their commitment to improvement but their determination to put proven, life-saving improvement techniques into action."

Dr. Steven Ross, Medical Director of Clinical Effectiveness for McLeod Health, added, "For many years now, McLeod Regional Medical Center has been a leader in designing and implementing innovative healthcare solutions -- solutions that result in real changes in patient care. These changes translate into saved lives through a reduction in errors and the use of evidence based medicine. The Clinical Effectiveness Division at McLeod is now a recognized world leader in the design and implementation of these solutions that improve patient care.

"We accept with great enthusiasm the challenge proposed by Dr. Berwick and the 100,000 Lives Saved campaign and hope that this campaign will spread to every hospital in the world. The medical staff at McLeod Health welcomes the opportunity to share our Clinical process development strategies that have resulted in the successful outcomes we have seen in our healthcare system here at McLeod Regional Medical Center."