Atlanta VAHCS Nurses receive National HeRO Award
A group of Atlanta VA Health Care System nurse practitioners noticed the organization had a high 30-day readmission rate for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) at 19.3%.
Dr. Stewart and her team launched a LEAN Yellow Belt project to reduce readmissions. Using the Green Light to Go flyer, their team implemented a quality Improvement project that involved daily patient education while the Veterans were inpatient. They facilitated interdisciplinary clinical team engagement on COPD management and updated their ambulatory care sensitive conditions dashboard to capture key COPD metrics with the Care Transition Committee.
The results of the project were reducing COPD 30-day readmissions to 14.3% and avoiding $222,000 annually in inpatient stay expenses. The gain has been sustained to date after the project completion. The project was published in the May 2024 issue of The American Journal of Nurse Practitioners and was awarded the National HeRO Award for clinical teams in FY2024. The project aligns with VHA's HRO Principles of Sensitivity to Operations, which focuses on front line staff and care processes, and Reluctance to Simplify, which focuses on getting to the root causes of problems.
Congratulations to the team: Jacquelyn Stewart, DNP, ACNP-C, (team lead); Myrtle White, DNP, NP-C; Jolly Thomas, DNP, ACNP-C; Dustin Smith, MD; Detrice Sledge, RN; Chino Serrano, PSA; Mr. William Johnson, Program Analyst; Seenamol Samuel, RN; Anjana Chandy, RN; and Meena Jose, RN-nurse champions.