Health Care Access: The Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP)

Health Care Access – The Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP)

Grand Canyon University: HLT 418V

Health Care Access – The Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP)

One of the many blessings of being in the United States is that we have access to health care. One thing for certain is that Health care services should be provided to everyone without being discriminated. Health care professionals should ensure that while caring and treating patients, which they act in accordance to the medical laws. There are agencies regulating the health care industry to ensure that all the health care professionals act in accordance to the laws and that people/ patients have access to high quality medical care. The Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program known as (CUSP) is a design that can help clinical teams make care safer by combining improved teamwork, clinical best practices, and the science of safety (AHRQ, 2014).

This paper we will dig deeper into The Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP). We will go over the strategic plan for CUSP; we will see if it aligns with what the community of the United States health care needs. We will discuss the community that Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) supports and what their true mission is. We will also discuss if it is a waste of taxpayers’ money in the end.

So the mission of Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) is to help clinical teams make medical treatment and care safer by combining improved teamwork, clinical best practices and using the science of safety. The Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) has a core toolkit that gives clinical teams the training resources and the tools to apply the Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) method and build their capacity to address safety issues. This core kit was actually created by health care clinicians for other health care clinicians. The Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) toolkit is modular and modifiable to meet individual unit needs. Each module includes teaching tools and resources to support change at the unit level, presented through facilitator notes that take you step by step through the module, presentation slides, tools, videos. The National Institute for Research on Safety and Quality will provide $10.6 million for Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) activities in Fiscal Year 2019, the same level of funding as in Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in Fiscal Year 2018. In Fiscal Year 2019, National Institute for Research on Safety and Quality will continue funding the nationwide expansion of the Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) project.

The strategic plan for Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) is improving the recovery of patients from surgery, including reduction in surgical site infections (SSIs) and other complications. Fiscal Year 2019 funds will support continued expansion of this project, which is planning to initiate two additional cohorts focused on gynecology and emergency general surgery. Like previous Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) projects, each of these three projects is developing a toolkit to assist participating hospitals and units in implementing safety and practice improvements. As the projects progress, the toolkits will be refined on the basis of participants’ experience. At the conclusion of the projects, the final toolkits will be posted on the National Institute for Research on Safety and Quality website to enable units and hospitals that did not participate in the projects to adopt the effective methods used in the projects and thereby benefit their patients. The availability of the toolkits on the National Institute for Research on Safety and Quality website thus extends the impact of the Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) projects beyond their duration.

According to Timmel, 2010; “culture of teamwork and learning from mistakes are universally acknowledged as essential factors to improve patient safety”. Both are part of the Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP), which improved safety in intensive care units but had not been evaluated in other inpatient settings (Timmel, 2010). The goals of the Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) implementation projects are to promote the adoption of evidence-based practices to prevent Health Associated Infections and thereby improve the safety of healthcare. “The Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) is a critically important component of Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: Health care-associated infections Program, which sustains a robust portfolio of research and implementation projects to prevent HAIs” (CUSP, 2017). Hospital Acquired Conditions (HACs) are conditions that a patient develops while in the hospital being treated for something else. These conditions cause harm to patients. Hospital acquired illnesses include Catheter associated Urinary Tract Infection (UTI), C. Diff (excessive diarrhea caused by C. difficile bacteria which can turn deadly, Air embolism, foreign object retained (in the body) after surgery, falls and trauma which lead to fractures or dislocations and so much more. Having toolkits available for organizations for these hospital acquired incidents will hopefully decrease the incidents if not completely remove the possibility of them happening to patients. This is the last thing a patient needs while being admitted to the hospital; an increased stress load on top of the original reason why they came into the hospital. The Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) will help eliminate these scenarios completely. If we can remove Hospital acquired conditions that would improve many health organizations health care reimbursement and readmission rates.

The Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program has been a pretty successful program that has helped several health care organizations with improving their stats on health care associated infections, post-operative discharge instructions and care. The Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program has had some bumps in the road but now they are perfectly aligned with health care professionals. The program can only continue to improve. Health care is constantly changing with new technology and ways to treat and take care of patients. With the Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program when new technologies arise they can be prepared to assist with the changes. Also after an organization completes a toolkit and collects the data and compiles it together; this helps with other organizations that might be going through the same scenarios in which the completed toolkit could help them. It’s like having a library of completed projects that other organizations can benefit from as well.

The Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program is not a waste of taxpayers’ money; actually it is very beneficial to everyone. Actually one of the benefits of Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program (CUSP) is that during the process patient and family members are engaged in the care. The focus is making sure the family members can clearly understand what is going on with the patient and their care. Being in the hospital is enough stress already; throwing in not understanding the process can cause even more stress and could become a critical issue with post discharge care (Pottenger, 2016). I don’t believe that the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program should be abandoned; the program is improving as the years go by and the monetary aspect of the program has been pretty stable and not having over an increase; it has been pretty stable the last few fiscal years at the same amount for the budget. The future is bright in health care and like I stated that health care will be forever changing and we need programs that can guide hospitals, health care facilities along the way so that patients can receive the best care possible.

In closing the Comprehensive Unit based Safety Program is a bright star for the future of medical care and fixing quality care issues within an organization. This is the whole reason why Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) was created in the first place. Their mission is to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable, and to work within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and with other partners to make sure that the evidence is understood and used (AHRQ, 2017). With this program and organization we can hope for some day that there will be no medical errors but until that day we will continue to strive for monitor and completing these projects to improve the care that is given to patients here in the United States. If only we could combine this and completely reform Health Care then many would be happy and healthy.

References

AHRQ. (2014, August 28). Core CUSP Toolkit. Retrieved from https://www.ahrq.gov/hai/cusp/modules/index.html.

CUSP. (2017, September 27). Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program: Accelerating the Adoption of Evidence-Based Practices To Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections. Retrieved from https://www.ahrq.gov/hai/cusp/summary/index.html.

Pottenger, B. C., Davis, R. O., Miller, J., Allen, L., Sawyer, M., & Pronovost, P. J. (2016). Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) to Improve Patient Experience: How a Hospital Enhanced Care Transitions and Discharge Processes. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27749716.

Timmel, J., Kent, P. S., Holzmueller, C. G., Paine, L., Schulick, R. D., & Pronovost, P. J. (2010, June). Impact of the Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) on safety culture in a surgical inpatient unit. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20564886.