Norman Regional Health System
A City-Owned Public Trust Dedicated to Improving Performance
This case study focuses on Norman Regional Health System's achievement in providing recommended treatment on process-of-care, or "core," measures. Nearly a decade ago, Norman’s Board chair and a top physician administrator became champions for quality improvement, motivated by the fact that Norman had achieved just average scores on quality measures. Organizational, cultural, and system changes at Norman Regional, including the development of order sets and care plans, performance data transparency, concurrent review for certain patient groups, as well as a pharmacist-driven intervention, have led to sustained progress. For further information about the public hospital selection process and cross-cutting lessons about their improvement efforts, please see our introduction to the public hospital case study series.
Performance Improvement Strategies
- Approximately two and one-half full-time employees are dedicated to retrospective data abstraction for adherence to core measures and submission to CMS. Additionally, a nurse reviews all cases of noncompliance and provides detail about the “who, what, when, where, and why” in order to provide feedback to staff and physicians.
- To engage nurses, Norman Regional administrators established a Clinical Quality Council approximately two years ago. Chaired by staff nurses, the council monitors core measure performance and identifies and removes obstacles to compliance.
- To ensure heart failure patients are identified, a screening process is performed daily by the clinical pharmacist. It includes: checking the electronic medical record to identify patients who had one or more of the following: 1) a primary diagnosis of heart failure on previous admission; 2) cardiology consult; or 3) an elevated BNP level, which indicates heart failure.
For further information about the public hospital selection process and cross-cutting lessons about their improvement efforts, please see our introduction to the public hospital case study series.
