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Alabama Hospital Association

Our Progress The Journey Continues  |  Partnership for Patients

For many years, Alabama’s hospitals have worked hard to provide the best possible care to their patients. Over the last 12 years, they’ve been even more focused:

  • Quality Task force meets monthly to share ideas and work on projects to make patient care safer.
  • More than 300 hospital executives, quality and infection leaders meet twice a year to hear the latest science on improving care.
  • For the last four years, hospitals have participated in 11 targeted quality improvement projects, such as  falls prevention and infection reduction. 

Through these efforts, Alabama’s hospitals are:

  • Improving medication safety, reducing readmissions, and preventing falls
  • Decreasing the spread of infections
  • Using rapid response teams to be able to respond more quickly to patients when an issue is suspected.
  • Using checklists for surgery to make sure everything goes according to plans.
Our Progress
It's Worked

Over the last several years, the federal government and other payers have increasingly linked hospital payments to quality improvement.  In the first year of reporting on Medicare quality, Alabama ranked number one in terms of improvement and performance, and our hospitals continue to score well. For more information, go to Hospital Compare.

The Journey Continues

For the fourth year, the Alabama Hospital Association has participated in a national project that supports hospitals in improving care in the following areas:

    • Reduction of readmissions
    • Prevention of falls
    • Prevention of pressure ulcers or bed sores
  • Prevention of infections:
    • Central line infections
    • Catheter-associated urinary tract infections
    • Surgical site infections
    • Ventilator-associated pneumonia
    • Prevention of harm in obstetrics
    • Prevention of adverse drug events
  • Prevention of blood clots
The Journey Continues

Hospital Acquired Conditions. Lower Readmissions by 12%. Lower Other Hospital Acquired Conditions by 20%.

The project, called the Partnership for Patients, includes many hospitals in the state participating in initiatives shown to improve care. During the project, hospitals have pledged to try and reduce readmissions by 12 percent and other hospital-acquired conditions by 20 percent.

Read MoreFind out more about this initiative