The pursuit of perfection in health care delivery never stops.
“A great hospital has great health care providers—doctors, nurses, physical therapists and so on—and great processes,” says bariatric surgeon Naveen Ballem, MD, who holds the newly created position of Chief Clinical Effectiveness Officer at Clara Maass Medical Center (CMMC). “It’s the role of the hospital administration to make sure a hospital has those great processes, and to ensure that all steps are beautifully orchestrated in a patient-centric treatment plan,” he says. As Chief Clinical Effectiveness Officer, Dr. Ballem oversees the areas of Quality Improvement, Performance Excellence, Regulatory Compliance, Patient Safety and Infection Control.
“When you think about quality, it’s not about achieving it once, but rather about maintaining it long-term in a highly reproducible, reliable manner,” he says. “The health care landscape is constantly changing, from new technologies to new evidence-based guidelines, and it is imperative that we not only keep up but strive to stay a step ahead.”
Data matters
Like other RWJBarnabas Health facilities, CMMC is on a mission to become a High Reliability Organization (HRO), a concept that originated in the field of aviation and is now being widely adopted in health care. “HRO is not an award. It’s the pursuit of perfection,” says Dr. Ballem. This high-level goal takes shape in many ways. One is the relentless collection and evaluation of data of all kinds. For example, all patient infections—wound, bloodstream, urinary and more—are analyzed for cause, treatment and means of preventing future occurrences. Processes, too, are continually evaluated. What is the best process for diagnosis if someone comes to the hospital with chest pain? What are the best practices and technology for preventing bed sores?
“We use a lot of checklists, much as pilots do before a flight,” Dr. Ballem says. “For example, we do something we call a ‘time-out’ in the operating room, where we go through a checklist to confirm and reconfirm the patient’s name and the type of surgery to be done, that we have all the equipment ready, and so on. Once everyone on the team confirms that all the components are in place, then we can perform the surgery.” Equally important, the Chief Clinical Effectiveness Officer must make sure the medical center is up to speed with the constantly changing guidelines and evaluation metrics used by insurers and other outside organizations.
Delivering quality care is not, of course, a new concept. “From a smaller perspective, every medical practice strives for the same kind of excellence and effectiveness,” Dr. Ballem explains. “In my bariatric practice, we focus on every patient as if they are the only one as we guide them through the pre-op process to surgery and ensure their success and excellent surgical outcomes. But it becomes more complex in a large organization, because there are so many moving parts.”
Still, he and the medical team at CMMC are up for the challenge. Dr. Ballem says, “Every day at Clara Maass, we strive for the pursuit of perfection with a highly reliable team and consistently reproducible high-quality outcomes for every single patient we serve.”
Learn about treatments and services offered by Clara Maass Medical Center, call 888.724.7123.