Wisconsin's health care workers and the Blue Angels — at first thought, they may seem like an unlikely comparison, but they are more similar than you may realize.
It’s hard not to stand in awe of the Blue Angels’ flawlessly executed coordination and remarkable teamwork, which come as a result of the team’s rigorous training and the personal dedication of each team member. This is not unlike Wisconsin’s health care workforce, made up of an elite group of care professionals whose individual hard work and teamwide coordination lead to remarkable outcomes.
Just like the Blue Angels’ mission to, “showcase teamwork and professionalism … through flight demonstrations and community outreach, while inspiring a culture of excellence and service to country,” our state’s health care workers make a similar commitment to their work and the people of Wisconsin every single day. And while the Blue Angels are far superior in the skies, both groups share a strong sense of duty to their communities and country, inspiring a culture of excellence, pride and hope.
When looking across the national health care landscape, Wisconsin is often recognized as a top-10 state for top patient safety outcomes. Most recently, Wisconsin was ranked fourth in the nation for its percentage of hospitals that received five-star ratings by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in July. These annual ratings reflect 46 measures across five categories of quality: mortality, safety of care, readmissions, patient experience and timely and effective care.
Wisconsin hospitals’ health care quality is so impressive that our percentage of five-star rated hospitals — 38% — is more than twice the national average of 16%. On top of that, 39% of Wisconsin hospitals received four-star ratings, for a total of 77% of our states’ CMS-rated hospitals with either four or five stars — largely exceeding the national average and a 15% increase from last year.
What can account for such an impressive boost in these ratings? Just ask Wisconsin’s team of dedicated health care workers who work tirelessly to improve outcomes and provide the best possible patient experiences.
Over the last year, the Wisconsin Hospital Association has worked with Wisconsin hospitals and health systems to implement robust quality improvement and patient safety efforts — not necessarily to impact ratings, but to better serve patients.
These initiatives range from the adoption of technology-driven systems to ensure patients receive proper medication dosages, to frameworks to ensure older adults receive care that meets their unique needs, to task forces to help reduce the number of preventable sharps-related injuries, and so much more. Hospitals implemented innovative programs, such as ones to help reduce readmission rates, and adapted national guidelines into local strategies, such as one for stroke patients to ensure they’re administered timely, life-sustaining medication within 60 minutes of walking through hospital doors.
These efforts all require innovative thinking, strong leadership, intense coordination and the personal dedication of each team member. Without any of these factors, quality improvement initiatives could easily fall flat. Instead, just like the Blue Angels, Wisconsin’s hospitals and health care workers showcased their teamwork and professionalism, served their communities, and have inspired a culture of excellence through this national recognition.
Wisconsin’s hospital administrators have even been known to contact peers at higher-performing hospitals to identify best practices that can be adopted to improve outcomes. This sharing of best practices facilitates collaboration and rapid improvements. In fact, all 10 measures of nationally reported patient satisfaction data show Wisconsin hospitals performing better than the national average. Wisconsin also surpasses the national average in readmissions data reported for common diagnoses, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart failure, heart attack, hip and knee surgery, and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG).
Our work is not done, though, because it’s never done.
To further strengthen the continuum of care across Wisconsin, our state’s hospitals, rehabilitation centers, long-term care, specialized outpatient services and other care settings must work together with public health and insurers to optimize a forward-looking approach to health care. We must focus not only on improving patient care experiences, improving the health of populations, and reducing costs, but further, addressing clinician burnout in the wake of the pandemic and advancing health equity.
These partnerships will enable much-needed conversations so we may adapt to the challenges of today, prepare for the challenges of tomorrow, and look toward a brighter future, all in the spirit of strengthening our communities and population health.
This article ran in The Cap Times
on Sept. 30, 2023. See article here.