Bon Secours Venice Hospital Becomes Charter Member of New Multi-National Network to Improve Health Care Quality

June 12, 2002

Venice, Florida – Bon Secours Venice Hospital announced today that it has become one of 53 Charter Members of a new multi-national network, created by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston, MA, to improve health care quality. The network, known as IMPACT, brings together change-oriented health care organizations seeking to improve the way health care is delivered. The 53 Charter Members are located in 28 states in the United States and two provinces in Canada.

IMPACT is a network of health care organizations – including some of the finest hospitals in the world – that are joining together to create a community of service providers committed to significantly improving patient care. IMPACT member organizations will work in five critical areas:

• Patient Safety – ensuring that patients have a safe healthcare environment
• Office Practice and Outpatient Settings – building efficient, proactive, patient-centered care systems for primary care, specialty practices and ambulatory settings
• Flow Through the Hospital – reducing waiting times, redundancy and waste throughout the hospital system
• Intensive Care Settings – improving care for patients in critical care units while reducing costs
• Workforce Development – ensuring a vibrant, motivated, and skilled workforce

Each of the IMPACT member organizations has committed to making breakthrough improvements in one or more of these areas during the next two years. While most of the participating hospitals have chosen one or two, Bon Secours Venice Hospital has elected to focus on all five of the areas described above.

“High quality health care for our patients has been a priority for our system and we are enormously pleased to be a part of this exciting multi-national effort that will accelerate positive change across the country,” said Michael Guley, Chief Executive Officer of Bon Secours Venice Healthcare. “Successful hospitals of the future will be measured by their quality outcomes. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement has been the leader on these efforts for years, and we are excited to be working with the Institute in such a concentrated and significant way.”

Bon Secours Venice Hospital is one of only four Florida hospitals that are Charter members of the IMPACT quality health care network. The other Florida hospitals are Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, Naval Hospital Pensacola in Pensacola and Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare in Tallahassee. Charter members outside the state of Florida include Cedars-Sinai Health System in Los Angeles, Stanford Hospital and Clinics in Stanford, California, Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and Baylor Health Care System in Dallas/Fort Worth.

“It is hard to improve alone,” said IHI president and CEO Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP. “That’s why we created IMPACT, a community of improvers who will learn and act together across organizations, disciplines, and even nations. Together, they will accelerate learning, cut the risks and costs of innovation, celebrate successes, and support each other to transform patient care.”

For more information on IMPACT, contact IHI at (888) 320-6937, visit www.ihi.org or email impact@ihi.org.

Founded in 1991, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is an independent, non-profit organization based in Boston, MA. IHI is dedicated to improving the quality of health care systems through education, research and demonstration projects and by fostering collaboration among organizations and their leaders. IHI projects extend throughout the U.S. and around the world.

Bon Secours Venice Healthcare is a Catholic, not-for-profit health system based in Venice, Florida. The system includes Bon Secours Venice Hospital, Bon Secours Home Health Services, Bon Secours Place at HealthPark (assisted living), Bon Secours Venice Nursing and Rehabilitation Center and Bon Secours Venice HealthPark Ambulatory Care Center.