Quality Healthcare

Valley Health System — a Commitment to High-Quality Healthcare

Committed to Quality Care

The healthcare professionals of The Valley Health System are committed to providing high-quality, compassionate care to our patients.

What is “quality?”

In healthcare, we define quality as working to achieve specific outcomes by following proven evidence-based processes. In simpler terms, it means having the right people and right equipment perform the right procedure or activity at the right time for every patient.

We continually review our current statistics and implement processes to maintain or improve patient outcomes. We use evidence-based medicine, compare ourselves to national benchmarks and implement “best practices” developed by organizations such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

Some examples include:

• A patient with chest pain should receive an aspirin when he arrives.
• Following surgery, a patient’s antibiotics should be stopped after a recommended number of hours.

Awards and Accreditations

Our commitment to these standards is recognized by our various accreditations by local, state and national organizations such as The Joint Commission, the Society for Cardiovascular Patient Care, and specialty designations for bariatrics and diabetes programs.

See all of the Valley Health System's awards and accreditations >

Patient SAFETY

The safety of a patient during hospitalization is just as important as diagnosing and successfully treating them during their visit. There are dozens of patient safety initiatives within the hospital; some are behind the scenes and some are very visible.

Some examples include:

• Strict adherence to hand hygiene (hand washing)
• Preventing patients from falling while hospitalized
• Reviewing medications to ensure there are no negative interactions
• Identifying and controlling infection control issues.
• Reducing hospital re-admissions within 30 days of discharge
• Calling a “time out” before every surgical or interventional procedure

We also comply with the National Patient Safety Goals. These are goals set by The Joint Commission to continually improve patient care in the hospital.

Core Measures

Evidence-based medicine has identified certain steps healthcare team members should take to provide the best possible outcome for patients with certain health issues. We call these “core measures” and submit this data to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Hospitals are reimbursed based upon adherence to these measures.

Some examples of diagnoses for core measures are:

• Acute myocardial infarction (heart attack)
• Pneumonia
• Congestive heart failure
• Surgical Care
• Stroke

Review the core measure scores for our hospitals from the US Department of Health and Human Services >

Patient EXPERIENCE

We are continually working to improve our patients’ hospital experience. We have implemented evidence-based best practices to improve patient experience while they are in the hospital, and to ensure a safe transition home when patients leave the hospital.  Hospital leaders and nursing managers  are very visible throughout each patient's hospital stay, and work diligently to provide the best and safest care that is respectful of each patient's values. Nurses have an hourly rounding process that helps ensure that patients are comfortable and that their needs are being met.  We encourage patients to  “speak up” if they have questions to be answered or have thoughts how we can improve their experience

Following discharge, patients will receive an automated call within 24 to 48 hours to see how they are doing at home and if there are any questions that we can answer. If you are a patient, please answer this call and let us know that you are either at home doing well or that you have some questions. If you have questions, we will call you back, and work with your medical provider when necessary, to answer your questions. It is very important to us that patients have a safe transition home and understand their discharge instructions.

Patients may also receive a phone call after discharge from our survey partner, Press Ganey.  They will ask a series of questions about the patient's experience at the hospital. If you receive such a call, your thoughtful answers will help us deliver better care to our patients.

Review the HCAHPs scores for our hospitals from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services >

Infection Control

A team of nurses and microbiologists conduct and maintain surveillance protocols for our hospitals to ensure the safety of our patients and staff and to meet the regulatory requirements of the Centers for Medicare Services (CMS) and the State of Nevada.

Some examples of their far-reaching duties include:

• Monitoring surgical site infections including for total hip and total knee replacements, Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery (CABG), laminectomy, abdominal hysterectomy, and colectomy.
• Monitoring and tracking infections caused by Methicillin Resistant S. aureus (MRSA), and C. difficile
• Working with staff to prevent central line infections in the blood stream (CLABSI)
• Overseeing hand hygiene compliance
• Continued education to hospital staff regarding infection control issues.

Our infection control professionals submit data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Healthcare Safety Network so we can participate in a standardized approach for comparison with regional and national infection data, and reliable tracking of our performance over time.

This approach entails:

1. Using a standardized definition for each type of infection.
2. Defining the patient population at-risk for each specific type of infection.
3. Employing a consistent systematic surveillance approach to identify infections. This entails review of laboratory reports, antibiotic utilization patterns and the patient medical record. At hospitals in the Valley Health System, trained infection control personnel analyze this information to generate our report.
4. Report this information as a specific infection rate for the population at-risk expressed as: the number of patients that acquire the specified infection during a defined time period (i.e. per 1000 days in the hospital at-risk for that particular infection).

Using these standardized definitions of healthcare associated infections, our hospitals enable themselves to be compared with other hospitals of similar size and complexity. This data is submitted to both the CMS directly, the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), and the State of Nevada for comparative purposes.