Becoming the best in the nation: Saint Francis Medical Center receives "A" rating for patient safety

400,000 people.

It’s the number of people who die annually due to preventable mistakes in hospitals, according to the “Journal of Patient Safety.”

This number is a statistic Saint Francis Medical Center refuses to be a part of. Over the past three years, they have been working tirelessly to put processes in place that improve quality, value and safety for their patients. And their work is bearing fruit: they have recently earned the highest grade of “A” in Patient Safety from The Leapfrog Group for the third cycle in a row.

It’s a rating given to hospitals to help consumers understand the safety level of the hospital at which they’re seeking care, developed by The Leapfrog Group to help patients know how likely they are to experience accidents, injuries, errors or harm while in a hospital. Grades of A through F are awarded based on data submitted from hospitals verified through intensive review and possible on-site data validation processes. Hospitals are rated based on factors such as inpatient care management, medication safety, maternity care and more.

It’s a way of holding themselves accountable to their patients that Saint Francis, the largest healthcare system between St. Louis and Memphis, finds important to keep them moving forward.

Dr. Maryann Reese, President and Chief Executive Officer

“We want to make sure our patients receive the best care and best outcomes,” says Dr. Maryann Reese, President and Chief Executive Officer of Saint Francis Healthcare System. “It means that the level of healthcare in our community is second to none. Our goal is to be the best hospital in the nation for quality, safety and value. When I first came here and said that, people were like, ‘Really?’ Well, why not? We’re in the business of healthcare; why wouldn’t we want to be the best? Why wouldn’t we want that for our community? Why wouldn’t we want that for our neighbors, for our family? Of course that’s what we want. And we know how to take the steps to get there.”

Those steps include daily meetings with managers and directors from Saint Francis and outlying clinics to mitigate factors that produced negative outcomes. It includes engaging their frontline colleagues through more than 100 colleague-owned initiatives, empowering them to create processes that address problems such as readmissions and hospital-acquired infections. It includes a performance improvement team that mentors 70 frontline colleagues, helping them to run apparent-cause analyses. And it includes examining with frontline colleagues the causes of avoidable events and near-misses such as readmissions so it doesn’t happen again.

Stephanie La Pierre, MBA, BSN, RN, CSSBB (ASQ), CPHQ, CPHRM, Chief Performance Improvement Officer

“When you engage frontline colleagues, it’s amazing what they come up with,” says Stephanie La Pierre, MBA, BSN, RN, CSSBB (ASQ), CPHQ, CPHRM, Chief Performance Improvement Officer at Saint Francis Healthcare System. “And that’s the reason we’re as successful as quickly as we have been. It’s pretty incredible.”

Other entities are noticing, too. Saint Francis Healthcare System was recently one of three hospitals in Missouri recognized for quality improvement through the Missouri Hospital Association Aim for Excellence Award, which recognizes hospitals in the state of Missouri making significant progress toward better health, improved care and lowered costs for their patients. It’s the second time out of the two times they’ve been eligible to receive the award that they’ve been honored with it. Saint Francis received the award for Clinical Excellence amongst Small and Large Metropolitan Hospitals for their work in reducing the number of Surgical Site Infections (SSIs) throughout a three-year period.

It’s an ambitious goal, as the national SSI average shows that 2 to 5% of all patients, or 20 to 50 patients out of every 1,000, incur a superficial, outside or deep infection because of a surgery they receive in a hospital. This costs both the patient and the hospital more money, as it means extended hospital stays, additional staff time and more medications. Through a literature review and the procedures Saint Francis has put in place — including simple measures such as ensuring proper handwashing techniques, cleaning of instrumentation and covering of hair to name a few — they have managed to lower their instances of SSIs from an already-lower-than-the-national-average 0.8% in 2015 to 0.38% in 2019, or approximately four patients out of every 1,000 surgeries done. This is for all types of surgeries across the board, helping lower costs for their patients, as it cuts down on readmissions.

And yet, this already incredibly low number of SSIs is not low enough for Saint Francis. Through engaging the hearts and minds of their frontline colleagues, systematically evaluating, testing and revising their processes, and educating patients on post-surgery recovery, they are continually working to ensure no patient who has surgery at their hospital receives any kind of infection. They are determined to lower their instances of SSIs to zero.

As Saint Francis continues to eliminate Surgical Site Infections, improve their procedures and work toward their goal of becoming the best hospital in the nation, their next steps, La Pierre says, are to work with frontline colleagues and providers at their 47 clinics across the region to develop standards and improve access to primary and specialty care. It’s excellence La Pierre says benefits the entire region.

“When you start competing on quality, the level of excellence at every organization in that region improves,” La Pierre says. “So the people who win are our patients and community.”

It’s quality the region can continue to count on as the team at Saint Francis Healthcare System works toward becoming the best.

“It does take every single person to really work together to make sure that we turn acceptable care into exceptional care, and that’s what I’m most proud of,” Reese says. “We have a culture here that people want to be the best, and so that makes it fun.”

A former Neonatal ICU nurse, Dr. Maryann Reese, President and Chief Executive Officer, visits the Family Birthplace at Saint Francis Medical Center.