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March 12, 2008

Contra Costa Regional Medical Center recently received good news from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) when the agency issued a final report and recommendation following a survey last year.

"We made a monumental leap," said Dr. Steve Tremain, Senior Medical Director of Contra Costa Regional Medical Center (CCRMC). "CMS is saying that we have complied with everything they asked for, patient and employee safety problems have been corrected and we have established some practices that other hospitals might want to try."

The clean bill of health from federal regulators in the latest in a number of awards and acknowledgements that CCRMC has received. Earlier this year in Orlando, Florida, at the Annual Forum of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, CCRMC was honored in front of 6,500 people in the forum and 15,000 people worldwide via satellite as one of only six hospitals worldwide achieving innovation and improvement in medication reconciliation. Medication reconciliation helps assure that accurate medication hand-offs occur at admission, transfer and discharge. To win approval from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, CCRMC had to submit a Plan of Correction following a survey of the entire Medical Center in 2006. The survey found concerns in Inpatient Psychiatry, Dietary (food services) and Pharmacy.

For the past year, the Medical Center has been working to improve quality and safety, redesigning major parts of the service delivery system, and the culture of the hospital. Staff made multiple changes in the processes and forms they use, meeting greater expectations for documentation. "Lots of credit is due the nursing staff, which adapted to numerous changes that have improved the quality of patient care delivery," said Dr. Tremain "CCRMC has been recognized nationally for some of those efforts and the hard work of all the staff was reflected in CMS' new findings."

The Ventilator Pneumonia Prevention teamwork at the Medical Center was also heralded at the forum, with CCRMC featured as one of two hospitals -- the other was Johns Hopkins -- cited for "collaboration amongst clinicians" for the work in reducing harm from ventilators.

"I applaud the hard work and dedication of our staff that has resulted in this tremendous achievement," said William Walker, M.D., Director of Contra Costa Health Services. "This new CMS report reflects their continued commitment to service excellence." Contra Costa Regional Medical Center and its local Health Centers are a division of Contra Costa Health Services, the county health department.

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