Safety at Vidant Health Systems

Patient safety is the foundation of our performance improvement efforts.

Harmful Events

Our goal is to reduce the number of harmful events to zero. Specific harm events that we report include:

Device-related infections

The number of infections related to the use of devices such as ventilators, central venous catheters or urinary catheters.

Falls resulting in injury

The number of hospital patients who are injured by falling.

Medication errors

The number of patients who receive the wrong medication dose or type that results in harm.

MRSA

The number of patients who contract Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), a hard-to-treat type of infection, while in a health care facility.

Skin breakdown

The number of hospital patients who experience pressure sores severe enough to damage underlying tissue.

Prevention

A bundle is a structured way of improving the processes of care and patient outcomes: a small, straightforward set of evidence-based practices — generally three to five — that, when performed collectively and reliably, have been proven to improve patient outcomes.

Ventilator-associated pneumonia prevention (VAP)

Percentage of time we follow the best practice ventilator bundle of measures to help prevent infection.

Catheter-associated urinary tract infection prevention (CaUTI)

Percentage of  time we follow the Foley bundle of measures to help prevent infection (our compliance rate).

Central venous line-associated infection prevention (CVL)

Percentage of time we follow the CVL bundle of measures to help prevent infection (our compliance rate).

Hand hygiene

Percentage of time we follow hand hygiene practices to help prevent infection (our compliance rate).