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September 30, 2024 / 2024 Connecticut's Healthcare Heroes Awards

2024 Healthcare Hero: St. Mary’s Hospital

St. Mary’s Hospital Safety, Quality & Performance Improvement/Intensive Care Unit Team Led by: Stephanie Nelson, Director of Safety, Quality & Performance Improvement Return to the honorees homepage
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Winner Category | Healthcare Prevention

The Safety, Quality & Performance Improvement/Intensive Care Unit at St. Mary’s Hospital in Waterbury works to implement and maintain a hospital-wide practice of safety, quality and performance improvement through proactive audits, analysis, patient feedback, events or trends.

The team is a resource for staff education and assistance on quality of care, regulatory requirements and patient safety. With a focus on analyzing data to create and drive performance improvements, the team proactively works to raise the standard for the organization.

What have been the team’s significant contributions to the organization in the past year?

Performance improvement is a mindset and is about always working to elevate safety, quality and patient experience.

We’ve spent significant time implementing new care models to enhance and improve patient care, including LEAF technology to reduce pressure injuries, enhanced monitoring for fall reduction, and more. Each initiative to improve safety, quality and performance improvement is driven by our hyperfocus on metrics, data and patient feedback.

Everything we do has a trickle-down effect leading to recognitions such as three straight grade A’s from the Leapfrog Group, a four-star Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rating, ongoing improvements in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Performance program and several specialty Joint Commission certifications.

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What are some major challenges the team had to overcome?

New technologies can be intimidating to both seasoned staff and newly hired staff. It was important to create an environment that fostered collaboration and engagement.

Ensuring caregivers were provided an education and understanding of each new process created opportunities that allowed valuable learnings. Strong leadership to implement new processes and technology is critical.

What’s the team’s next major goal and/or challenge?

We are always working to continuously elevate care and make changes where necessary, even if it’s a small change. We are strongly focusing on several patient experience initiatives related to hospital-acquired infection reduction and the expansion of fall-prevention technology to other departments.

Team Members: Lisa Ciarlo, Critical Care Nurse Leader; Paula Bowley, Nursing Professional Development Specialist; Stephanie Nelson, Director of Safety, Quality & Performance Improvement

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