Valued Voice

DHS and CMS Substantiate High Quality Care and Culture of Safety

Three-day survey of UW Health results in no citations

The results of a three-day survey to investigate safety concerns reported by UW Health nurses to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) have been released. The concerns were not substantiated and no citations were found despite an intense investigation, including staff interviews and thousands of pages of document review. 

The concerns were submitted by nurses who are pushing to form a union at UW Health through Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Eighteen percent of UW Health’s nurses pay dues to SEIU. The submission of these complaints triggered an in-depth and comprehensive three-day review of the care, services and environment at UW Health. The final DHS report was reviewed by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) which also had no citations.
 
"This reinforces what we already know to be true, that our quality and our culture of safety are part of the DNA of every single team member at UW Health,” CEO Alan Kaplan noted in a message to staff. "While we don’t enjoy having our work attacked, we don’t flinch from the scrutiny, because we all believe in the quality of our care."