Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital (PPMH) is just the second hospital in the country to earn Advanced Certification in Infection Prevention (AC-IP) from DNV, a global independent expert in risk management and one of the two primary accrediting agencies for healthcare organizations in the United States.  

“This is an incredible milestone that highlights Phoebe’s commitment to patient safety and proves that infection prevention is a top priority in our hospital,” said PPMH CEO Deb Angerami.  “The fact that only one other hospital in the nation has successfully completed the rigorous steps required to earn this certification speaks volumes about the quality of care our teams provide and how seriously we take the safety of every patient we have the privilege of serving.”

The President of DNV’s healthcare division, came to Phoebe Tuesday to personally congratulate the hospital’s Infection Prevention team and present the certification to hospital leaders.

“The DNV ACIP program empowers all staff to make necessary changes through a comprehensive risk assessment framework that provides hospitals with tools, resources, and institutional support to address often overlooked areas and implement best practices.  ACIP motivates entire hospital systems to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities, rework and redesign existing systems, more efficiently manage resources, and ensure smarter and safer healthcare,” said Kelly Proctor, President, DNV Healthcare USA Inc.

AC-IP recognizes excellence in an organization’s infection prevention and control processes with an emphasis on sepsis management.  One recent example of quality improvements at PPMH is enhancements in monitoring patients for sepsis, a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body’s immune system has an extreme response to an infection.  If not identified quickly and treated aggressively, sepsis can progress rapidly, often leading to multiple organ failure and death.

“Phoebe utilizes AI software that constantly monitors our patients’ medical records for even slight changes that may be a sign of sepsis.  If the system picks up on something, it sends an immediate alert for the care team to address.  It may be a false alarm, but if it is concerning, the team escalates and begins sepsis treatment right away,” said Phoebe Putney Health System Sepsis Coordinator Kelly Hill, RN.

Phoebe’s Sep-1 compliance rate, a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services standard which measures whether every intervention recommended to diagnose and treat patients with sepsis is completed over three-hour and six-hour periods, is significantly higher than both state and national averages.  Phoebe is also expanding its community sepsis education efforts.

“Often people suffering from sepsis wait too long to seek care, and when they get to our ER, the illness has progressed to a point that it can’t be successfully treated.  We’re focusing on community education to teach people the symptoms of sepsis and the importance of early intervention,” said PPMH Director of Accreditation & Infection Prevention Cynthia Chaney, MSN.  “We’re also working with sepsis patients who are discharged from the hospital, giving them knowledge to protect themselves in the future and even following up with post-discharge calls to check on their recovery.”

To earn AC-IP from DNV, a hospital must also adopt a structured and robust approach to manage the impact of emerging pathogens, measure program performance and adapt quickly to global changes.

“As an early hotspot during the COVID-19 pandemic, we learned a lot of lessons.  As part of this certification, we’ve had to implement new processes and additional education requirements to prove that we are well-prepared to deal new threats and potential future pandemics,” Chaney said.

DNV surveyors reviewed all aspects of Phoebe’s infection prevention and control processes and procedures and completed a thorough in-person survey.  Any hospital who earns AC-IP must be recertified annually.

According to DNV, certified organizations are equipped to achieve long-term performance goals and have established an accountability system by:

• Identifying improvement opportunities and areas of risk which, when resolved, enhance performance toward improved outcomes

• Providing patients and their families validation that their healthcare team has high-level experience, knowledge and skills in the complex process of treating and preventing infections

• Validating continuous quality improvement and compliance with AC-IP requirements and accepted standards of infection prevention and control best practices

• Differentiating the organization’s infection prevention program from those of other hospitals