LOS ANGELES, Nov. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Hospital Association of Southern California (HASC) today announced the launch of a new initiative to help hospitals improve quality of care and reduce costs in the operating room. The Surgical Care and Operating Room Excellence (SCORE) Initiative is an intensive, nine-month program focused on creating operational efficiencies and enhancing the culture in the perioperative services area. 

SCORE is designed to give hospitals the practical tools and skills needed for developing and sustaining effective, high-reliability processes in the OR.  By teaching high-reliability teamwork and communications skills and implementing innovative tracking technology and Lean Six Sigma improvement tools, SCORE will increase patient safety and reliability while reducing operational costs.

“Hospital operating rooms are highly complex and fast-paced by nature, requiring effective people, processes and technology all working together to achieve efficient, affordable and safe surgical care,” said HASC VP of Hospital Operations and Performance Excellence Michele Graynor. “SCORE gives hospitals the ability to achieve these goals in a collaborative environment where administrators, staff members and physicians can all participate and leverage their collective wisdom.” 

SCORE was developed by a team of high-reliability experts and Lean practitioners to deliver quality improvements for hospitals. Targeted improvements include:

• Reduction in adverse events and surgical site infections
• Optimization of capacity and OR room utilization
• Increased levels of staff and physician satisfaction
• Decreases in room turnover times
• Increased on-time starts
• Reduction of supply and sterilization costs
• Standardized communication
• Improved teamwork and coordination
• Standardization of surgical practices and guidelines.

Developed in association with Safer Healthcare, a Denver, Colo.-based company, SCORE gives participating hospitals the ability to simultaneously improve patient safety, increase levels of quality, and reduce costs. “We are extremely pleased to launch the SCORE initiative,” said Tony Gorski, CEO of Safer Healthcare.  “For the first time, California hospitals will be able to benchmark and share their progress and best practices in the OR when it comes to quality improvement and patient safety.” 

SCORE will also leverage the innovative technology of TAGNOS, a Southern California-based company, to provide continuous visibility of the hospital’s assets and patients using location-tracking and patient-flow software.  This solution will not only give the patient’s location at all times, but also determine the patient’s progress in the overall treatment process, the length of time needed to complete each step, and the remaining steps.  Any delays are flagged immediately, and the hospital staff is notified. This level of application intelligence allows hospitals to improve patient throughput, asset and staff utilization, and overall patient satisfaction. 

“According to the Association of periOperative Nurses, one additional procedure per day can generate $4 million to $7 million of revenue in an average-sized facility in one year,” said Neeraj S. Bhavani, CEO of TAGNOS. “Hospitals are faced with a limited number of operating rooms and ever-increasing surgical volume. Expediting patients through the surgical process will maximize allocation of limited resources by reducing scheduling delays and gaps in OR time.”

About the Hospital Association of Southern California

The Hospital Association of Southern California (HASC), founded in 1923, is a not-for-profit 501(c)(6) regional trade association. The mission of HASC is to lead, represent and serve hospitals, and to work collaboratively with other stakeholders to enhance community health.  For more information, visit www.hasc.org.

About Safer Healthcare

Safer Healthcare specializes in the rapid and sustained delivery of training programs, products and consulting services that help health care organizations increase levels of safety, quality and reliability in clinical, financial and operational departments. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Safer Healthcare has trained over 100,000 health care professionals in Crew Resource Management and has helped hundreds of hospitals globally using the evidence-based methods of Crew Resource Management and High Reliability. For more information, visit www.SaferHealthcare.com or call 1-866-398-8083.

About TAGNOS

TAGNOS is an enterprise-ready patient management solution to improve efficiency, quality and experience. We offer various applications including Patient Flow, Patient Free Ranging, Patient Wandering, Patient Falls, Room Turnover, Staff Optimization and Asset tracking. Using tracking and hospital data – the “who-what-when-why-where and how” of hospital operations – TAGNOS’ Intelligent Associations and Analytics Engine provides vital information to improve caregiver workflows. The patented TAGNOS solution allows healthcare managers to improve the overall efficiency and safety of basic healthcare processes. TAGNOS offers better patient care and facility throughput through real-time, fully-integrated clinical process automation and analytics. TAGNOS provides significant improvements in efficiency and communication easily interfacing with PDAs, laptops, desktops and tablet PCs. For more information, please visit www.tagnos.com or call 805-990-3160.

Participation in the nine-month program is being made available to hospitals throughout California.