Nebraska healthcare professionals have been privy to two exceptional learning opportunities earlier this month. Great Plains QIN – Nebraska hosted the 15th Annual Nebraska Healthcare Quality Forum on June 7 and the first Annual Nebraska Antimicrobial Stewardship Summit was held on June 1. While the majority of the attendees for each event were from Nebraska, healthcare professionals from neighboring states, such as Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and South Dakota also attended.
A brief summary of each event is included below as well as links to resources and handouts.
Nebraska Healthcare Quality Forum
Nearly 400 healthcare providers from all settings attended the 15th annual Quality Forum. The atmosphere at the event was lively and interactive. Two keynote presentations offered insight on the landscape of the national healthcare environment and the power of connections. The majority of the day was healthcare providers throughout the state sharing their innovative approaches to care on a wide variety of topics, including medication safety, care coordination, diabetes management, quality reporting, healthcare infections and much more.
An attendee commented, “This was one of the best Quality Conferences I have been to in the nation.”
Quality Forum take-aways and comments:
- The collaboration of care between entities has to have exceptional communication and driven people to make it work
- I am now better able to identify employee behaviors that contribute to adverse events
- It was very helpful to understand the purpose and use of palliative care and how we might be able to use it even in a rehab setting
- As always, I am amazed and excited by the commitment of the presenters. As a result of attending, I realize the necessity to partner with all disciplines across the continuum in order to provide high quality care
- I learned too many things to list here. This was my first time attending; I was not expecting this workshop to be “interesting”
“We are extremely pleased with the number of attendees, the level of engagement and the caliber of presentations. The comments we received from attendees speaks volumes to the value of information shared and the innovative efforts throughout the state to improve care and patient outcomes. This event would not be possible without the support of our co-sponsors, the commitment of our presenters and to those who took the time to attend. It was a wonderful day and we look forward to continuing the success of this event in 2019,” stated Keri McDermott, Communications Director for Great Plains QIN.
Click here to access event details and presentation materials.
2019 Nebraska Healthcare Quality Forum Save the date: June 6, 2019 [Embassy Suites – LaVista, Nebraska]
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Nebraska Antimicrobial Stewardship Summit
This conference was the first of its kind in Nebraska in which information on antimicrobial stewardship in various healthcare settings was the focus. Healthcare leaders throughout the state offered updates and dialogue on national antimicrobial stewardship activities in acute, long-term, post-acute and ambulatory care settings. Audience members were presented with the premise…it is ‘NOT IF’ we need antimicrobial stewardship, but what is the most efficient and effective way to accomplish it. Stewardship is more than just antibiotic resistance; it is a matter of patient safety. Presenters discussed the roles of the laboratory, pharmacists, nurses and infection preventionists in antimicrobial stewardship as well as public health support. Regulatory requirements and interventions were addressed as well as the measurement and metrics.
Some Summit take-aways included:
- It takes a team to establish a stewardship program
- No one is alone in this journey
- The importance of documentation to show efforts and improvement
- Persistence is key and the need to continue to ‘keep at it’ for eventual success
To access the educational materials from the Summit, please go to: https://asap.nebraskamed.com/2018-summit-slides/.