2011 Annual Report
Report to Our Communities
2011 Annual Report
Report to Our Communities
In 2011, we implemented an electronic health record (EHR) system in five hospitals within the Central Valley and Peninsula Coastal regions. Our EHR helps providers share vital patient information instantly to enhance care for millions of patients across Northern California. Already installed in all of our medical foundation offices, the EHR also connects providers in six hospitals systemwide.
In 2011, hospitals within our network of care collectively performed in or near the top 10 percent nationally in seven of 10 key clinical measures set by the federal government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Born three months premature, little Sam is now healthy and strong, with help from medical teams at Sutter-affiliated Alta Bates Summit Medical Center.
Sutter Health medical teams continued adopting best-practice safety standards to more quickly identify and treat certain hospital-acquired infections (central line-associated bloodstream infections, ventilator-associated pneumonia and sepsis). As a result, from 2007-2011, our health providers saved 2,500 lives and reduced costs by approximately $75 million.
Across our network of care, we standardized the way our hospitalized patients receive intravenous medicine. In doing so, we improved safety for patients, lowered the risk for medication errors and reduced health care costs by millions.
Research shows that our patients' ethnic backgrounds, ancestry and primary language play a large role in their overall health and well-being. In 2011, we introduced an innovative way to collect this important information to help us provide the best possible care to patients. Now recognized as a national model, this approach provides important data that helps our caregivers develop culturally sensitive treatment plans. It also helps identify community groups that may have higher risks for particular medical conditions. In addition, the standardized approach supports community research that helps identify cultural differences that may cause barriers to accessing care.
Sutter Health launched an Electronic Health Record (EHR) program—Sutter Community Connect—to qualified physicians in independent practice. The Epic-based software option expands Sutter Health's sizeable investment in building a fully integrated EHR system that enables more seamless, effective and efficient care coordination for our patients.
Several of the nation's most prestigious health systems—the Mayo Clinic, Denver Health, Intermountain Healthcare, Dartmouth-Hitchcock and Cleveland Clinic—invited Sutter Health to join the High Value Healthcare Collaborative. As part of this group, we exchange comparative health data and identify new cost-efficient ways to improve care for patients.
Sutter-affiliated California Pacific Medical Center completed research on a promising new "medication cocktail" to fight Hepatitis C. In a study, these medicines cured 79 percent of patients chronically ill with the virus. CPMC published their research findings in The New England Journal of Medicine.
California Pacific Medical Center conducted a rare 5-way kidney swap transplant in 2011. This was the first five-way kidney swap transplant in a single hospital in California—and the second to occur nationwide.
Learn more about our quality focus at www.sutterhealth.org/quality/reports/
