Sparrow earns two national distinctions for patient safety

Published: Oct. 26, 2009

LANSING, Mich. - Sparrow Hospital has recently earned important national distinctions in two areas related to patient safety.

Care of surgical patients

Sparrow has been recognized by the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) as one of only 25 participating hospitals to achieve exemplary outcomes for surgical patient care. ACS NSQIP, which is used in more than 250 hospitals, is the only nationally validated quality improvement program that measures and enhances the care of surgical patients.

The hospitals selected for this special recognition must achieve the distinction of attaining exemplary patient-management outcomes in two or more of five key clinical areas: DVT (deep vein thrombosis, thrombophlebitis and pulmonary embolism), cardiac incidents (cardiac arrest and myocardial infarction), pneumonia; SSI (surgical site infections-superficial and deep incisional and organ-space SSIs), and urinary tract infection.

Care of cardiology patients

Sparrow is one of 121 hospitals nationwide to receive the American College of Cardiology Foundation's NCDR ACTION Registry-GWTG Gold Performance Achievement Award for 2009. This award recognizes success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients, and signifies that Sparrow has reached an aggressive goal of treating coronary artery disease patients with 85 percent compliance to core standard levels of care outlined by the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association clinical guidelines and recommendations. This award will be bestowed in Orlando, Florida, on Nov. 16