Learning From What We Do, and Doing What We Learn: A Learning Health Care System in Action.

Different models of learning health systems are emerging. At Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the Learning Health Care System (LHS) Platform was established with the goal of creating generalizable knowledge. This differentiates the LHS Platform from other efforts that have adopted a quality improvement paradigm. By supporting pragmatic trials at the intersection of research, operations, and clinical care, the LHS Platform was designed to yield evidence for advancing content and processes of care through carefully designed, rigorous study. The LHS Platform provides the necessary infrastructure and governance to leverage translational, transdisciplinary team science to inform clinical and operational decision making across the health system. The process transforms a clinical or operational question into a research question amenable to a pragmatic trial. Scientific, technical, procedural, and human infrastructure is maintained for the design and execution of individual LHS projects. This includes experienced pragmatic trialists, project management, data science inclusive of biostatistics and clinical informatics, and regulatory support. Careful attention is paid to stakeholder engagement, including health care providers and the community. Capturing lessons from each new study, the LHS Platform continues to mature with plans to integrate implementation science and to complement clinical and process outcomes with cost and value considerations. The Vanderbilt University Medical Center LHS Platform is now a pillar of the health care system and leads the evolving culture of learning from what we do and doing what we learn.

A Multicomponent Fall Prevention Strategy Reduces Falls at an Academic Medical Center.

BACKGROUND: While the reduction in fall rates has not kept pace with the reduction of other hospital-acquired conditions, patient safety research and quality improvement (QI) initiatives at the system and hospital levels have achieved positive results and provide insights into potentially effective risk reduction strategies. An academic medical center developed a QI-based multicomponent strategy for fall prevention and pilot tested it for six months in three high-risk units-the Neuroscience Acute Care Unit, the Myelosuppression/Stem Cell Transplant Unit, and the Acute Care for the Elderly Unit-before implementing and evaluating the strategy hospitalwide. METHODS: The multicomponent fall strategy was evaluated using a pre-post study design. The main outcome measures were falls and falls with harm measured in events per 1,000 patient-days. Fall rates were monitored and compared for three classes of falls: (1) accidental, (2) anticipated physiologic, and (3) unanticipated physiologic. RESULTS: Statistical process control charts showed that the pilot units had achieved significant reductions in falls with harm during the last five months of data collection. Wald test and segmented regression analyses revealed significant improvements in pooled postintervention fall rates, stratified by fall type. The hospitalwide implementation of the program resulted in a 47% overall reduction in falls in the postintervention period. CONCLUSION: A fall prevention strategy that targeted the spectrum of risk factors produced measurable improvement in fall rates and rates of patient harm. Hospitals must continue developing, rigorously testing, and sharing their results and experiences in implementing and sustaining multicomponent fall prevention strategies.

Transformational Leadership: The Chief Nursing Officer Role in Leading Quality and Patient Safety.

This department column highlights leadership perspectives of quality and patient safety practice. The purpose of this article is to provide strategic direction for transformational quality and safety leadership as the chief nursing officer (CNO) within the academic medical center environment.

Health Care Reform, Care Coordination, and Transformational Leadership.

This article is meant to spur debate on the role of the professional nurse in care coordination as well as the role of nursing leaders for defining and leading to a future state. This work highlights the opportunity and benefits associated with transformation of professional nursing practice in response to the mandates of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. An understanding of core concepts and the work of care coordination are used to propose a model of care coordination based on the population health pyramid. This maximizes the roles of nurses across the continuum as transformational leaders in the patient/family and nursing relationship. The author explores the role of the nurse in a transactional versus transformational relationship with patients, leading to actualization of the nurse in care coordination. Focusing on the role of the nurse leader, the challenges and necessary actions for optimization of the professional nurse role are explored, using principles of transformational leadership.

Acute coronary syndrome pathways: alignment with a bundled care reimbursement model.

Changes in public policy, population demographics, and market dynamics are spurring innovative approaches to value-based care. Annually, hospitalizations for Acute Coronary Syndromes (ACS) account for a substantial proportion of healthcare expenditures in the United States. Vanderbilt University Medical Center has developed a framework to deliver comprehensive care incorporating inpatient and outpatient care teams for patients with ACS under an episode-based, bundled reimbursement model for a term of 6 months. As such, a value-oriented pathway was created with the goals of (1) optimizing patient outcomes following ACS; (2) minimizing complications from the treatment of ACS; and (3) reducing costs of healthcare related to the treatment of ACS. In a tertiary care academic medical system receiving patients from multiple facilities involving multiple providers, standardization of care by using practice guidelines and evidence-based data coupled with a robust computerized provider order entry system provides a unique opportunity to produce a "best practice" algorithm for treating patients presenting with ACS. Presented in this study are in-hospital and postdischarge care pathways for treating a diverse group of patients presenting with ACS to our institution.

The Vanderbilt Professional Nursing Practice Program, part 3: managing an advancement process.

Consistency of performance standards across multiple clinical settings is an essential component of a credible advancement system. Our advancement process incorporates a central committee, composed of nurses from all clinical settings within the institution, to ensure consistency of performance in inpatient, outpatient, and procedural settings. An analysis of nurses advanced during the first 18 months of the program indicates that performance standards are applicable to nurses in all clinical settings. The first article (September 2003) in this 3-part series described the foundation for and the philosophical background of the Vanderbilt Professional Nursing Practice Program (VPNPP), the career advancement program underway at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Part 2 described the development of the evaluation tools used in the VPNPP, the implementation and management of this new system, program evaluation, and improvements since the program's inception. The purpose of this article is to review the advancement process, review the roles of those involved in the process, and to describe outcomes and lessons learned.