Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford Hosts Healthcare Value Network

Hospital and national collaborative “redefining value for patients”

For Release: February 03, 2012

PALO ALTO, Calif. — No one in America likes sitting in a waiting room, or waiting as a doctor or nurse steps out to search for supplies, or paying for or enduring tests or treatments that have been proven unnecessary. Providing the healthcare you need as quickly, safely, respectfully and affordably as possible, and with the very best health outcomes—that’s what it means to deliver “value” in healthcare.

As part of the ongoing focus on healthcare reform in the U.S., hospitals are looking deeply at their own systems for delivering valuable care. Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, long noted as a leader in patient safety and quality outcomes, is now focusing on developing and implementing innovations that offer a model to hospitals seeking to reform the patient experience.

HVN representatives also visited the Center for Advanced Pediatric and Perinatal Education Center (CAPE) to see and learn about simulation training, and heard a presentation from leaders in the Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Units on the work they are doing. These departments are also developing continuous audits for quality, and aligning focus on who determines what is valuable: namely, the patient and family.

“The visit by HVN was very important to us,” said Christopher G. Dawes, president and CEO of Packard Children’s. “It was a validation by some of the nation’s top healthcare leaders that our work, called the Packard Quality Management System, is making inroads in redefining value for our patients.” (Dawes and other hospital leaders discuss the Packard Quality Management System in this new video.) Established in 2009, the Healthcare Value Network unites healthcare leaders through peer-to-peer learning experiences in real world settings. Together, these leaders develop relationships, share knowledge, conduct experiments and access the best resources to accelerate their organization’s system transformation. This teamwork actively develops, tests and shares changes in delivery system transformation and indicates the highest level of involvement in the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value in Appleton, WI. The Healthcare Value Network currently consists of 53 organizations across North America.

Established in 2008, the non-profit ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value is a worldwide resource and connecting point for healthcare leaders passionate about improving healthcare. Their mission is to create a healthcare marketplace that rewards value by collaborating with leaders in the provider, employer, insurer, and government communities to create:

• Transparency of healthcare performance
• Redesigned care delivery which is measurably less wasteful with fewer errors
• Payment systems that reward patient value creation

The Center’s vision is to change the industry through decisive action and education that spreads learning and accelerates improvement. During a visit to Packard Children’s earlier, ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value CEO John Toussaint, MD said, “I was very impressed by the value-creating work being done at Packard. It is very much in line with the outstanding innovation going on at other leading organizations. And, in fact,” he added, “Packard is doing some really thought-leading work in several areas, such as simulation, to support patient safety.”

“It’s all part of a very collaborative effort,” said Craig Albanese, MD, Packard’s Chief of Pediatric Surgery and Vice President of Quality and Performance Improvement. “Members of the Healthcare Value Network learn from each other and share best practices in providing the best and most affordable outcomes for patients. That’s what value means.” An example of the Packard Quality Management System, as shared with the HVN, illustrates several years’ worth of improvements in Perioperative Services to optimize patient flow and supplies management. Also, for more than six years, Packard Children’s has had Local Improvement Teams to keep a steady eye on quality and to measure clinical outcomes. Unlike other hospitals with similar teams—based on Dartmouth’s Clinical Microsystems—Packard Children’s has uniquely integrated the work of the Local Improvement Teams into their daily management system.

“Our goal has been to drive transformational growth,” added Dawes. “This includes physical transformation through our facility expansion, and also the professional transformation of how we work, which is dramatically improving our systems for delivering care as well as the way our patients and families experience care.” The reforms promised over the next several years through the Packard Quality Management System are many. There will be less of a wait in that waiting room. And those supplies will be kept close at hand. And only the tests and treatments you really need will be the ones provided. “The leaders at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital are creating a new paradigm for healthcare delivery and healthcare leadership,” said HVN President and COO Helen Zak. “Sharing this with the Healthcare Value Network is one way to drive change throughout the healthcare system to redefine value to the patient.”

Authors

Robert Dicks
(650) 387-7500
rdicks@stanfordchildrens.org