How to Address Cleanliness Violations at Hospital? New Building or Performance Improvement

The LA Times posted this article about UCLA Harbor Medical Center's safety violations stemming from "lack of cleanliness".

The plan for correction: "Los Angeles County is spending nearly $323 million to construct a 190,000-square-foot building at the hospital that will replace both the surgical facilities and the emergency room. "

As some of the comments to the story point out, its not all about the facility - its also about management and leadership. I've worked with organizations that have faced even older infrastructure, and yet we have improved their cleanliness with good old fashioned management and systems:

• Leadership recognized the difficult situation but resolved to address it.
• Management threw its shoulder "to the flywheel" and made it turn.
• A voluntary team of "cleanliness inspectors" toured the hospital on a regular basis and documented cleanliness of high risk areas - in a manner that could be measured, easily disseminated, and compared.
• Performance improvement systems were installed to ensure improvement:
• Pulled together a "performance improvement team" to oversee the issue.
• Measured the results.
• Made the measurement consistent and reliable.
• Disseminated the findings.
• Developed policies for cleanliness that could be adhered to by all.
• Ensured accountability by reporting on the team's findings to the governing body through the appropriate oversight committees.
• Made the "clicks of the fly wheel visible to all" by showing that some departments (that were just as resource-starved as the others) were able to make improvements.

Perhaps a new building is necessary at UCLA Harbor for many reasons, but in order to reform healthcare, we as a society have to start recognizing that adding costs (staffing, equipment, and buildings) to solve a problem are not sustainable interventions. Improving leadership, management, and systems are.


ADDENDUM 11/1/11: This story published subsequently in the Daily Breeze provides further details about a corrective action plan being put into place at UCLA Harbor. "Those fixes include a reorganization and restructuring of the hospital's infection prevention and control unit, identifying problems with the physical plant and enhancing efforts to assure staff members are washing their hands and practicing good hygiene." All of these actions appear to be appropriate, however, the key to real and sustained improvement from the "corrective action plan" is to ensure that the actions are monitored regularly, and that comprehensive performance improvement systems are implemented.