CommonSpirit Health, a prestigious healthcare institution, has demonstrated its commitment to enhancing performance concerning patient safety and quality care. The health system’s endeavors have resulted in substantial successes in these areas over recent years. For instance, they marked a significant 18 percentile rise above their benchmark performance for stroke care, achieving an impressive 72nd percentile.
In the fiscal year 2025, they centered their efforts on the reduction of hospital adverse events, resulting in a 59th percentile performance, a commendable 7 percentile improvement over their baseline. Furthermore, they reached the 71st percentile at the national level in reducing hospital-acquired infections—an ascension of 7 percentile from their baseline score. In the 2025 fiscal year alone, the health system managed to evade over a thousand hospital-acquired infections, contributing to a total of approximately 3,200 avoidable infections since 2020.
As part of their strategy to upgrade the quality performance, CommonSpirit Health is focusing on increasing the frequency of annual wellness visits, with ambitions to reach the 73rd percentile performance by the fiscal year-end, up from a baseline of the 65th percentile. Emphasizing the integral role of data in boosting the quality and patient safety scores is CommonSpirit Health’s Chief Medical and Quality Officer, Dr. Phillip Chang, MD, MBA. According to Dr. Chang, data is instrumental at every level, from the local to the market, regional, and national, ensuring that personnel align their work with the defined goals.
Consequently, the health system relies on multiple data points, including hospital-acquired infection rates, mortality rates, patient end-of-life experiences, and patient experience measurements. Patient experience significantly contributes to the quality of care and encompasses an assortment of elements. For instance, clinicians should communicate care plans to patients clearly, ensuring they understand them. The patient care design must uphold timeliness and respect for patients and create an appealing, clean, restful, and humane care environment.
CommonSpirit Health employs several patient safety indicators, but historical data informs their decision on a specific patient safety goal for each year. The health system also endeavors to decrease hospital-acquired infections as part of their ongoing efforts to improve patient safety and care quality. This commitment is evidenced by the fact that they have infection prevention experts at various levels who have explored best practices for infection prevention.
Their strategy to reduce hospital-acquired infections includes the elimination of the unnecessary use of invasive devices such as central lines and urinary catheters. They have also formulated best practices to avoid central line-associated bloodstream infections, such as adhering to hand hygiene and sterile procedures and setting the timely removal of central lines as a goal. As a standard, local leaders are empowered to actualize these national standards flexibly while attaining the expected outcomes.
The health system also embraces the management of chronic diseases as a key avenue to enhance the quality of care. To ensure regular contact with patients and manage chronic conditions effectively, they advocate for annual wellness visits across the system. As part of these visits, clinicians are encouraged to have unhurried conversations with patients to develop trust while gaining insights into patients’ medical conditions. This approach has the added advantage of providing care for chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes.
Source: https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/cmo/commonspirit-health-making-gains-quality-and-patient-safety