Volume 11
Issue 14
July 8, 2016
PRESBYbulletin Penn Presbyterian Medical Center
On Monday, June 27, PPMC’s ED celebrated National HIV Testing Day by wearing red - the color of HIV/ AIDS awareness. The celebration was the official kickoff of the team’s 12 week “Everyone Gets One” campaign this summer, which aims to promote HIV testing and make it a routine part of the daily workflow in the health care setting, and specifically in the ED. Infectious Diseases and the PPMC ED have a long-standing history of working together to promote HIV testing. Until October 2015, the teams had a model in place where a designated HIV counselor offered HIV testing via a rapid HIV test. Last year, following new CDC recommendations that everyone receive an HIV test at least once in their lifetime, Penn Medicine updated its policy and is now implementing routine lab-based testing, which can detect the virus 3-4 weeks sooner than rapid testing.
PPMC Wins Get With The Guidelines® - Stroke Gold Plus Award! Penn Presbyterian Medical Center has received the American Heart Association/ American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus Achievement Award with Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite. The award recognizes PPMC’s commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of stroke care by ensuring that stroke patients receive treatment according to nationally accepted standards and recommendations. This recognition puts PPMC among an elite group of hospitals recognized by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. All five Penn Medicine Hospitals received stroke quality achievement awards this year. Hospitals must achieve 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month periods and achieve 75 percent or higher compliance with five of eight Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality measures to receive the Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award. According to the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association, stroke strikes nearly 800,000 Americans each year and is the fifth cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States. On average, someone in the United States suffers a stroke every 40 seconds and someone dies of a stroke every four minutes. Congratulations to everyone at PPMC for working with Get With The Guidelines to strike back against stroke!
Penn Presbyterian Medical Center Receives National Award for ICU Design
The Penn Ventricular Assist Device Program Celebrates Dedicated Patient Caregivers The Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) Program at Penn Medicine hosted a night of dinner, dancing and discussion to celebrate and give thanks to those caregivers who provide support for our VAD patients day in and day out. VAD patients depend significantly on their caregivers for help and support, both physically, emotionally and financially. The event, funded by a grant from the Board of Women Visitors, offered these wonderful, dedicated caregivers a night out, which they may otherwise not be able to enjoy given their responsibilities at home.
The Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM), the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN), and the American Institute of Architects Academy on Architecture for Health (AIA) have presented the ICU Design Citation Award to the trauma surgical intensive care unit (TSICU) at PPMC. The international design award recognizes intensive care units that successfully combine functional design with humanitarian delivery of care. The TSICU was recognized in part for its overall design goal of creating a healing environment promoting safety, security and efficiency for staff, patients and families. The American College of Critical Care Medicine Convocation/SCCM awards presentation took place in Orlando on Monday, February 22, 2016. Accepting the ICU Design Citation Award on behalf of PPMC were Tara Collins, MSN, CRNP, Neils Martin, MD, and Alyson Cole from PPMC, along with Bill Hawk, architect from Ewing Cole. The AACN presented the ICU Design Citation Award to the nursing team at the 2016 AACN National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition in New Orleans May 17, 2016. Accepting the AACN award were Joe Dimartino, MSN, NE-BC, Lorie Fosbenner, BSN, RN, CCRN, Chris Bennuhan, RN, and Jim Ballinghoff, RN, MSN, MBA.
Contact Us: Katie Delach | katie.delach@uphs.upenn.edu | http://news.pennmedicine.org/inside/presbybulletin/