Homestead Hospital-Baptist Health South Uses Evidence-Based Care Plans to Drive Care Delivery Improvement

Homestead Hospital, part of Baptist Health South in Homestead Florida, has been recognized as a HIMSS Davies Award winner.

The Davies Award recognizes the hospital’s work to reduce readmissions for congestive heart failure, reducing the length of stay for new mothers following C-sections and significantly improving response time and outcome for patients fighting sepsis.

Using evidence-based care plans to drive care delivery improvement, Homestead Hospital reduced the heart failure readmission rate from the 33.3 percent in 2011 to as low as 11.1 percent in 2019.

Homestead Hospital implemented electronic order sets in 2017 for the C-section population and over time has improved the length of stay from 3 days to 2.3 days and maintained zero maternal deaths and zero VTEs.

Homestead Hospital Case Studies:

• Heart Failure Readmission Prevention Case Study
• Decreased Length of Stay for C-section Case Study
• Sepsis Patient Case Study

Homestead Hospital created an e-ICU and implemented sepsis care plans, alert systems and communications, and bedside specimen — scanning improved sepsis response time, care bundle compliance and reducing the length of stay for sepsis patients from almost 7 days to under 4 days. These efforts also reduced sepsis mortality by almost 75 percent.

HIMSS Davies Award of Excellence

The HIMSS Davies Award of Excellence recognizes the thoughtful application of health information and technology to substantially improve clinical care delivery, patient outcomes and population health around the world. The Davies Awards program promotes HIMSS’s vision and mission by recognizing and sharing use cases, model practices and lessons learned on how to improve health and wellness through the power of information and technology.

“I am proud of our hospital team and corporate partners, who through our collective efforts are able to merge clinical practice, hands-on experience and technology to identify, measure and monitor various performance improvement initiatives,” said Ken Spell, CEO of Homestead Hospital. “As a result, we are able achieve significant advancement in three focused areas of Sepsis, CHF and OB ERAS, which improved the overall quality of healthcare provided to our patients.”

“As we continue to journey to zero harm, these initiatives have been a very rewarding experience to have been able to combine technology, best practices and evidence-based care to achieve favorable outcomes,” said Ana M. Cabrera, Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer at Homestead Hospital. “Patient, staff and providers all have benefited from the results we obtained.”