5 Diamond Patient Safety Project

madwife2002, BSN, RN · Feb 19, 2019

Has your facility recently started your 5 diamond projects for ESRD NETWORKS?

For those of you who have never heard of it, it is like a 5 star rating for hotels.

You achieve a star for each of the projects you implement into your facility.

The aim is to improve patient safety, get recognition from the renal community and pts will be able to use the 5 diamond rating to chose dialysis facilities which are achieving excellent standards of pt care.

As people we like ratings! We like to know that a hotel we go and stay at has good ratings before we book to go there, so why not chose the facility you are going to have dialysis at has similar ratings to what we expect from a nights stay in a hotel.

It is something simple by which we can measure our expectations by.

We have our first 5 star rating, and have a couple of projects on the go. Up until now it was voluntary if you joined the program but it is soon going to be something we will be expected to do.

When my company first introduced the concept, I must admit I raised my eyes, thinking 'oh no not more work'.

They pressed and pressed us to start the projects and we soon implemented them into our monthly education.

It was a lot simpler than we first thought, as you know everything seems more complicated until you try it out.

The most difficult part of the whole thing is getting your staff on board.

For many of the projects and there are 15 modules to choose from, you need to complete 5 in a running year and apart from the first one the choice is pretty much up to your facility.

Patient Safety Principles*

Communication **NEW**

Constant Site Cannulation **NEW**

Decreasing Patient & Provider Conflict

Emergency Preparedness

Influenza Vaccination

Hand Hygiene (Infection Control)

Health Literacy

Medication Reconciliation

Missed Treatments

Patient Self-Managed Care

Sharps Safety

Slips, Trips, & Falls

Stenosis Monitoring

Transplantation

In my facility after the first module which is Patient Safety Principles, we chose Influenza Vaccination.

We chose this because we were doing a huge drive for September 1^st for our patients to have the flu vaccination as soon as possible. The education that the renal network provided, which includes posters and handouts, and our own contribution it was a successful month for getting the pts vaccinated.

Last year we only achieved 64% of our patients by the year end, but by the first of October this year we had 70% of our patients done.

Unfortunately we won't get a 5 diamond for our efforts; you have to get 85% of staff vaccinated! After a long push we managed to get 68% of staff but the rest will not for one reason or another be vaccinated.

Overall it was a good learning experience and we enjoyed doing it.

We decided to do Hand washing next as part of our infection control and a drive towards improving hand washing with our patient population and staff.

As we do medicine reconciliation 3 monthly so we will do that module in our future.

The next big one we will tackle is missed treatments, we have a huge issue with this, and our aim is to reduce missed treatments, which in turn reduces hospitalizations for patients who miss treatments by spring of next year.

Finally we have chosen 'Slips, trips and falls' and have already set up a 'fall safety committee' in order to get the ball rolling.

I am happy to report that the majority of the staff is keen to be a part of the 5 diamonds project so up until now it has been an enjoyable experience.

We do a lot of the work that the renal networks are promoting, so why not get recognition for all the hard work we do already.

The 5 diamond project is just a new way of formalizing work we already do.

Maybe before we go and work at a dialysis facility we can look up the 5 diamond rating to see if it meets our expectations of a what we can expect as potential employees. Just a thought

The following ESRD Networks are currently participating in the 5-Diamond Patient Safety Program. Please contact your Network for more information:

ESRD Network of New England (Network 1)

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, & Vermont

Phone: 203.387.9332

Fax: 203.389.9902

IPRO ESRD Network of New York (Network 2)

New York

Phone: 516.209.5578

Fax: 516.326.8929

Quality Insights Renal Network 3 (Network 3)

New Jersey, Puerto Rico, & U.S. Virgin Islands

Phone: 609.490.0310