Hospital reduces costs with a simple, strategic change

Never underestimate the impact one change can have in a given healthcare setting. Take, for example, a change implemented at Maury Regional Medical Center. Staff became increasingly aware of the importance of getting certain patients up, mobile and walking and the positive results that can come from this.

Not too long after Maury Regional Medical Center joined a national improvement collaborative called QUEST, a nurse practitioner came to a meeting with an idea already being tried successfully at a small number of facilities: reduce deep sedation and increase rehabilitation therapy and mobilization soon after admission to the intensive care unit.

Early efforts at other medical centers were showing positive results with ventilated patients, just as early ambulation had been producing positive results for patients for several decades.

Working with the medical center’s critical care nursing staff, respiratory therapy, physical therapy and others involved in critical care, the literature was searched and studied, protocols were developed and tested. In 2008, Maury began its early ambulation of ventilated patients. Though a potentially scary move, the program’s positive results for patients continue to accumulate.

The baseline critical care length of stay for ventilator patients before early ambulation was 7.25 days. After the first year, it was down to 6.82 days. After the second year, 6.8 days. And for the most recent 12 months, 6.71 days.

Based on the number of cases the medical center had in the most recent 12 months, they reduced overall days of care by roughly 1,444 days. Using a conservative estimate of only $1,000 per day, the savings was nearly $1.5 million. Consider the savings that could be found if other healthcare systems were to do the same.

The national collaborative allowed Maury Regional Medical Center to learn from their peers. It allowed hospitals who had done this before to offer up knowledge and information. Sharing best practices among all U.S. hospitals and healthcare systems is the only way we will achieve the best care and most efficient care for patients. This is an example of the good that can come when hospitals and healthcare systems work together.

Kester Freeman blogs regularly at Action for Better Healthcare.