The Kentucky Hospital Association (KHA) presented its annual Quality Awards in September.
The awards are presented to honor hospital leadership and innovation in quality, safety and commitment in patient care. Twin Lakes Regional Medical Center (TLRMC) was one of seven hospitals from across Kentucky honored this year.
The goals of this award are to raise awareness of the need for organization-wide commitment to highly reliable, exceptional quality, patient-centered care; reward successful efforts to develop and promote improvements in quality of care; inspire organizations to systematically integrate and align their quality improvement efforts throughout the organization; communicate successful programs and strategies to the hospital field; and facilitate Kentucky hospitals’ alignment of quality initiatives with national initiatives.
TLRMC was named this year’s acute care hospital recipient for hospitals with less than 100 beds. This award recognizes hospitals that have demonstrated not only a dedication to patient safety, but persistence to going above and beyond what is expected for providing quality care.
A major focus of TLRMC since 2018 has been increasing patient safety surrounding the use of opioids to treat pain. Initially, the program had modest goals, but it quickly grew into a broader community program.
The team from TLRMC focused on reducing the number of patients receiving an opioid/benzodiazepine combination treatment. TLRMC has successfully reduced the rate of this combination therapy from 13.3 percent in October 2019 to 6.6 percent in January 2020. Additionally, ER discharge prescriptions for opioids dropped from 7.22 percent in 2019 to 4.8 percent in 2020.
TLRMC has also initiated an Addiction Services program which gives individuals suffering with addiction an opportunity to seek treatment locally and begin a road to recovery.
Jessica Embry, Director of Addiction Services at TLRMC said, “It is such an honor to receive this award. I am grateful to serve in a position that allows me to play a role in helping change the lives of those suffering from addiction.”
The Addiction Services program offers Medical Stabilization and Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) for adults and Maternal Opioid Medical Stabilization (MOMS) for expectant mothers with a wide variety of substance use disorders.
“TLRMC is one of the first rural hospitals to implement a program specifically targeted at treating addiction,” Brittany Clemons, Chief Quality Officer at TLRMC, stated. “There are even fewer treating expectant mothers for opioid use disorder. TLRMC’s Addiction Services program shows the hospital’s commitment to its community and residents. While this was a massive project with many components, it is of great benefit to our community. Our hope is that we can help our community members with substance use disorders.”
Twin Lakes Regional Medical Center
