In early February, Press Ganey awarded two healthcare organizations for their industry-leading commitments to patient safety, quality and workforce engagement. Rockville Centre, N.Y.-based Catholic Health received the HRO Foundation Award for its sustained reduction in serious safety events, and Inova was named Health System of the Year.
Dr. Jones shared with Becker’s he takes immense pride in the organization, which employs more than 25,000 people.
“I think that it’s easy to say you’re going to be a system. It’s hard to actually do it,” Dr. Jones said. “It’s easy to say you’re going to have a psychologically safe culture, and it’s hard to do it. But when you do it, you see the outcomes.”
A few years ago, a serious safety event occurred in one of Inova’s operating rooms. A patient developed an air embolism, a rare and potentially fatal condition in which air enters the bloodstream and blocks blood flow. Air embolisms are difficult to predict or prevent, he said, and the patient suddenly became critically ill.
“In that moment, my head was just about to pop off,” Dr. Jones recalled.
By remaining calm, giving others the space to speak up and acting quickly, the team helped the patient fully recover.
“I really, truly thought that the patient would not survive,” Dr. Jones said. “He, to my knowledge, is still home and healthy with his family.”
For the five-hospital system, safety, clinical quality and patient experience are integrated into what Inova calls Clinical Excellence. Each day at 1 p.m., Dr. Jones meets with safety team members, service line leaders, hospital executives and chief medical officers for a safety huddle.
“It’s not performative,” Dr. Jones said. “Literally sometimes people say, ‘I just walked out of the ICU where we had a safety concern, and I’m elevating it so everyone’s once aware.’ Sometimes we will then have someone say, ‘You know, I’ve also heard that concern.’ We can spot trends quickly.”
Press Ganey recognized Inova for its “innovative and industry-leading strategies to fully capture, analyze and act upon patient voice,” resulting in improvements in patient experience metrics, clinical quality, patient outcomes and healthcare accessibility.
Dr. Jones said he and his team feel honored by the award but emphasized that the organization must always strive for improvement.
“We really want to continue every single day to get better, and so we don’t want to pat ourselves on the back,” he said. “We want to get better every single day.”