South San Francisco, Ca May 30, 2018 Submitted by Joe Fragola, Kaiser Permanente
Eric Dilda MD Emergency Medicine KPSSF
eHospital Safety Net Program
“Hospital care involves executing complex protocols in an environment full of competing priorities. Our integrated care model and advanced electronic health record provide an opportunity to monitor for care gaps in a way no one else can.”
Eric Dilda, MD, is one of those physicians who is always curious—forever asking thoughtful questions, both at the patient’s bedside and on behalf of Kaiser Permanente. This innate inquisitiveness, coupled with a passion for keeping patients safe, makes him not only a great clinician, but also an unwavering advocate for continually improving patient care.
These qualities are what led Dr. Dilda to champion eHospital Safety Net, a unique remote monitoring program that helps ensure the consistency of the quality of care provided to patients during hospital stays in KP Northern California. But his other talents, including a transformational leadership style and exceptional communication skills, enabled Dr. Dilda to ultimately unite physicians, nurses, and staff throughout the region in a shared vision for and successful implementation of the program.
With eHospital Safety Net, registered nurses at a central quality hub scan lists of patient data generated 24/7 by our electronic medical record system. When they find something that’s not quite right—a missed medication, an error in blood product administration, deteriorating vital signs, or abnormal laboratory values—they phone an assistant care manager at the local hospital to make sure nurses or physicians are aware of the patient’s situation.
Implementing the program presented significant organi-zational challenges and required tremendous collaboration between Permanente physicians and operational leaders, nurses, and staff with Kaiser Foundation Hospitals. Dr. Dilda partnered with everyone involved to help them understand the potential, and then organized pilots of the program in a way that facilitated discussion about which types of feedback were most valuable.
“He has an amazing capacity for seeing the big picture, communi-cating a compelling vision, and collaborating to get the job done,” says Anne Goldfisher, RN, MA, executive director for quality and regulatory services in KP Northern California. “eHospital Safety Net has improved the timeliness and overall quality of the care we provide, and ultimately the health outcomes of our patients.”
To learn more about the e-Hospital Safety Net Program CLICK HERE to view a short informative video.
###
About the Garfield Award
Sidney R. Garfield, MD, was the physician founder of Kaiser Permanente and one of the great innovators of 20th century American health care delivery.
Dr. Garfield was a surgeon and visionary. He first applied the novel principles of prepayment, prevention, and group medical practice in the 1930s, while providing medical services to construction workers building the Colorado River Aqueduct in the Mojave Desert.
Then, during World War II, he developed a health care program for hundreds of thousands of workers and their family members at Kaiser shipyards in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Vancouver/Portland area, and at the Kaiser Steel Mill in Southern California. He focused as much on the prevention of illness as on caring for the sick.
Dr. Garfield looked for innovations in health care throughout his career. In the 1950s, his hospital designs drew international praise. In 1960, he was in the vanguard of physicians who embraced the computer as a tool that could radically improve the delivery of medical care.
Historians writing about events of the 1900s see the work of Dr. Garfield in co-founding Kaiser Permanente as one of the major social contributions of the century.
The Exceptional Contribution Award recognizes TPMG physicians who exemplify Dr. Garfield’s innovative nature. These physicians developed systems and programs that have a significant impact on patients, colleagues, and the broader community.