Volume 26
Number 13
June 26, 2015
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
`` Helping to promote HUP’s hand hygiene awareness were (from left) Rob Hsu of the ED; Rachael Coyle, So Ra Choe, and Nadine Dupiche of Rhoads 1; and Bill Gibson of Patient Transport.
For the past several years, HUP has focused on lowering the rate of HAIs (health-care associated infections), using team work and many proven strategies to prevent infections before they start. But studies show that the best way to do this is also the most basic: washing your hands.
Clean Hands Save Lives! As PJ Brennan, MD, SVP and chief medical officer for Penn Medicine, wryly noted, “If you do everything else but that, what’s the point?” According to Rachel Reis, BSN, RN, Infection Prevention specialist, the World Health Organization established “5 moments for hand hygiene” for anyone who cares for – or even comes in contact with – patients. “It’s important to involve everyone,” said Emily Blumberg, MD, director of Infectious Disease in Transplantation/Medicine. “Not only nurses and doctors but respiratory therapists, CNAs [certified nursing assistants], medical students, support staff and others who enter the patient’s room.” Proper hand hygiene, i.e., clean hands, is a priority at HUP. Each unit has a hand hygiene
Inside New Beacons of Excellence!....2 Join the MS-150........................2 For One Patient, Good Things Came in Threes.........................3 Supporting Cystic Fibrosis.......4 The Right Way to Wash Hands...............................4
champion to help increase compliance and the hospital’s hand hygiene committee holds quarterly activities to keep the issue on everyone’s radar. For example, for Hand Hygiene Day last month, “all the champions took photos of staff performing good hand hygiene and we used social media to get the word out,” said Reis. Working with Erica Voll of the UPHS Web team, they tweeted the photos – and the hashtag #safehands”—on Penn Medicine’s Twitter and posted on Facebook and Instagram to get out the message and engage others: “Here’s our hand hygiene. Show us yours!” (Continued on page 4)
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`` (Left) Recovering from her kidney transplant surgery, Carrie Pappas celebrated what was supposed to be her wedding day with her sons, Damon (l) and Shawn. The real wedding took place three days later, after she was discharged (below).
For One Patient,
Good Things Came in Threes Earlier this month, as the world watched American Pharaoh win the first Triple Crown in more than three decades, one Penn patient was having her very own triple crown weekend. Carrie Pappas, 42, had all plans in place to celebrate her nuptials on Saturday, June 6, but, while running last-minute wedding prep errands the day before, she received a call that the healthy kidney she’d been waiting for was available. Her wedding celebration suddenly turned into a very different kind of event. Pappas had been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease nearly a decade ago. For several years, medication and a change in her diet kept the disease at bay. But, in 2012, she began dialysis sessions — three times a week — and was placed on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. So, instead of a rehearsal dinner on Friday night, Dan Hallock, Pappas’s fiancé, took her to HUP for surgery where she received a healthy kidney under the care of transplant surgeon Ali Naji, MD. Instead of attending her wedding on Saturday, family members spent the day in her hospital room at HUP— in full wedding regalia, complete with a bouquet, bridesmaids, and a wedding cake – and that night they celebrated her new kidney at a party adorned with wedding centerpieces. The day after her discharge on Monday, Pappas and Hallock wasted no time in making their way to the courthouse, where they were finally married. The wedding weekend wasn’t what she imagined, but in many ways, it was the one she’d been waiting for. And as for that triple crown… while in her room at HUP recovering from surgery, Carrie also learned she will soon be a first-time grandmother.
Helping People All the Time
Congratulations to the February winners of the Helping People All the Time raffle! Dana Dockery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PeriOp MeganHarvey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rhoads 7 Clarence Spencer. . . . . . . . . . . . Founders 8 Erin Dolan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ravdin 6 Jamie Kakkanatu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CICU Stacey Hopkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ravdin 9 Silvia Arzu Bush. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Echo Lab Pat Lavin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ED Krista Kyle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silverstein 8 Kathryn Panzer. . . . . . . . . . . . . Silverstein 12 Brighty John. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silverstein 12 Meghan O’Neill. . . . . . . . . . . . Silverstein 12 Annette Davis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ED
Lauren McNeal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MICU Megan Stanton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Radiology Dana Butler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Radiology Ayana Smith. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Radiology Samantha Schad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rhoads 7 Erin Ticehurst. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pharmacy Elizabeth Knight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transplant Yvonne Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rhoads 7 Tamara Cross. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pulmonary Melissa Harriday. . . . . . . . . . . . . Pulmonary Corey Hymovitz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Radiology Laura Klementowski. . . . . . . . . Silverstein 8
If you know employees who go above and beyond to help our patients and their families, be sure to nominate them. Simply go to pennpoint.uphs.upenn.edu/sites/ HUP/hupse and click first on “HUP’s Service Excellence Nomination,” and then “New” at the top of the chart. You can also submit a name on a paper form, available at several locations throughout the hospital.
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New Beacons of
Excellence!
Congratulations to the staffs of the Intensive Care Nursery and the Post Anesthesia Care Unit for each receiving the prestigious silver-level Beacon Award for Excellence from the American Association of Critical Care Nurses. This award recognizes units that embrace and support evidence-based practice to improve patient outcomes and exemplify excellence in professional practice and patient care. The neonatal ICU is the only one in the region to win the silver level Beacon and one of only two in the entire state. At a special celebration in the ICN, chief nursing executive Regina Cunningham, PhD, congratulated the staff on their “great work. This is a huge honor that reflects your collaboration. All of your initiatives make a huge difference to both the parents and infants.” The PACU is the first of its kind of unit in the country to achieve this level of excellence! “We are so pleased to receive this highly coveted national award that reflects our excellence in nursing care,” said Colleen Mattioni, clinical director of PeriOperative Nursing. “I am so proud of everyone in the PACU.” Beacon-designated units meet criteria in five categories that are consistent with criteria for national awards, including Magnet Recognition and the National Quality Healthcare Award. These units also demonstrate practices that align with AACN’s Healthy Work Environment Standards for optimal care. `` The PACU staff
`` Members of the Intensive Care Nursery
Join the MS-150
Be a part of what Bicycling Magazine names the “Best Cycling Getaway in NJ”, and help raise money for MS. In the past 17 years, Team UPHS/PENN has raised over $1.7 million in the MS-150 Bike to Shore Tour and, with your help, it could surpass the $2 million mark this year for overall fundraising! Penn Medicine and the National MS Society have a longstanding partnership that benefits all those people who are affected by multiple sclerosis. The MS Society has invested over $6.2 million in UPHS research since 2004, including over $1.8 million in the last four years alone. UPHS receives more funding for research from the MS Society than any other Philadelphia area institution. Mark your calendars: This year’s ride is on October 3 and 4. To learn more and to register for the ride, go to http://main. nationalmssociety.org/goto/UPHS-PENN.
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Supporting
Cystic Fibrosis
For the fourth year, the Expectorants participated in the Narberth Cystic Fibrosis Run/Walk. The team, comprised of staff from Silverstein 11 as well as care providers for HUP’s CF outpatients and their families, raised almost $800 for the Take a Breath Foundation!
(Continued from cover)
Clean Hands Save Lives!
The
While health-care providers and support staff understand the importance of proper hand hygiene, there are challenges, Reis said. For example, sometimes a nurse might enter a room just to check on a patient with no plans for any contact, but “the patient needs something in the room so the nurse says ‘Let me just grab that for you.’” Another misconception is that you don’t need to wash hands if you’re wearing gloves. “You need to wash your hands before donning gloves and after removing them, even if you’re putting on clean gloves,” Reis stressed.
Moments for Hand Hygiene:
• Before entering a patient’s room. • Before performing any aseptic procedure. • After any exposure to body fluid. • After any patient contact. • After contact with any patient surroundings, ie,
“This allowed us to join with institutions globally to show our commitment,” Reis said. Starting next month, committee members will do walk rounds on every unit. “The unit champions track staff cleaning their hands when entering and leaving patient rooms and forward this information to us,” explained Suzanna Ho, RN, MSN, coordinator of Patient Safety and Quality Nursing. “On these monthly walk rounds, we’ll talk to staff on each unit about their rates and how to improve them.”
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any object or furniture in the patient’s immediate surroundings.
To ensure that staff have the necessary resources to perform good hand hygiene, HUP began putting up Purell (alcohol-based) dispensers on units – and around the hospital — nearly five years ago. Today, a typical unit with 20 beds has between 70 and 75 dispensers. And the ED has even more. “No one is immune from making mistakes,” Blumberg said, but the constant reminders increase awareness and identify potential barriers to 100 percent compliance. Bottom line: “You should be washing your hands a lot,” Reis stressed. “It seems simple but it’s very effective.”
“Gloves don’t make your hands a sterile field,” added Blumberg.
What’s the Right Way to Wash Hands? It seems like a silly question but when it comes to those working in a hospital, hand washing needs to be thorough! According to the World Health Organization, when washing hands – whether with soap and water or using an alcohol-based formula such as Purell -- you need to cover all of the surfaces to be effective. This includes not only the front and back but between every finger and along the entire palm. When using a hand sanitizer, this process should take between 20 and 30 seconds, until your hands are dry. For soap and water, keep washing between 40 and 60 seconds – long enough to sing Happy Birthday…. Twice!
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HUPdate Editorial Staff Sally Sapega Editor and Photographer Alexa Creter Graphic Designer
Administration
Susan E. Phillips Senior Vice President, Public Affairs Holly Auer Director of Communications Contact HUPdate at: 3535 Market Street, Mezzanine Philadelphia, PA 19104 phone: 215.662.4488 fax: 215.349.8312 email: sally.sapega@uphs.upenn.edu
HUPdate is published biweekly for HUP employees. Access HUPdate online at http://news.pennmedicine.org/inside/hupdate.