Hospital Receives Prevention Grant

David Acker (left) Charles Cole Memorial Hospital Chief Executive Officer with Marc P. Volavka, Executive Director of PHC4 during a press event held Monday, Aug. 7 to announce the awarding of a $36,000 grant to the Hospital to implement new technology to track and prevent hospital-acquired infections.

The Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) and the Highmark Foundation today announced that Charles Cole Memorial Hospital is one of 11 Pennsylvania Hospitals to receive a grant to implement new technology to track and proactively prevent hospital-acquired infections. Hospitals selected for the Reducing Hospital-Acquired

Infections with Electronic Surveillance Demonstration Project will receive funding to assist in their utilization of MedMined's Data Mining Surveillance service. Charles Cole Memorial Hospital's grant is for $36,000.

This grant is the second awarded to Charles Cole Memorial Hospital for its efforts to reduce and eliminate hospitalacquired infections. In 2005, the Hospital was one of six Pennsylvania hospitals to receive a grant from the PHC4 and the Jewish Helthcare Foundation for a demonstration project to quantify the costs and to reduce the number of hospital acquired infections.

"Charles Cole Memorial Hospital should be commended for taking the lead in implementing this infection control technology, which has been proven to lower both infection rates and health care costs," said Marc P. Volavka, Executive Director of PHC4. "The MedMined service frees a hospital's infection control staff from manual data collection practices and gets them onto the floors and into the rooms of hospitals so they can do the job they were trained for finding and preventing the causes of the hospital-acquired infections."

"The goal of the project is to reduce hospital-acquired infection rates, which is one of the most important areas where we can improve the quality and safety of health care today," said Donald Fischer, M.D., Highmark senior vice president and chief medical officer. "Keeping patients safe while in the hospital helps to increase the quality of care. It's a winwin for the patient and the hospital."

While the board of PHC4 committed $500,000 to the demonstration project, the board of the Highmark Foundation approved $250,000, of which $150,000 is earmarked to match dollars secured from other health insurers.

All Pennsylvania general acute care hospitals were eligible to apply for the project. Applications were evaluated and selected based on the hospital's economic need, location and commitment to employing contemporary infection control practices.

David Acker, Chief Executive Officer at Charles Cole Memorial Hospital, commended the Hospital's Infection Control Committee Chairman Syed Bhat, M.D. and Infection Control Coordinator Kristine Zitnik, R.N. for directing infection control efforts. "Under their leadership, the staff has worked countless hours in implementing process, equipment and bedside changes which are leading to progress in reducing and eliminating these infections. The new grant will allow the addition of cutting edge technology to our infection control tools."

MedMined, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cardinal Health, provides data mining analysis and related technical, clinical, and financial consulting services to the health care community. MedMined's Data Mining Surveillance service is currently used by 195 hospitals in 26 states, covering more than 2.5 million hospital admissions yearly. The service pinpoints sources of infections by electronically monitoring real time and historical clinical data, and it alerts infection control professionals to the processes of care that increase the risk of infections.

PHC4 is an independent state agency charged with collecting, analyzing and reporting cost and quality health care information.

The Highmark Foundation was created in December 2000 to support initiatives and programs aimed to improve community health. The foundation's mission is to improve the health, well-being and quality of life of the individuals who reside in the Pennsylvania 49-county region served by Highmark Inc. The Foundation provides grants to nonprofit organizations and hospitals for activities of many types, including demonstrations, pilot projects and models that have the potential to be replicated throughout Highmark's service area.