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2019 Vigi Award Winners

Discover the creative ways that our star customers have made their hospitals a safer place with VigiLanz.

About the Vigi Awards

The annual Vigi Awards are designed to recognize how clinicians’ vigilance has contributed to healthier hospitals. In addition to broadening awareness of optimal and innovative uses of VigiLanz to support patient care, VigiLanz provides winners with a donation to the charity of their choice.

 

Celebrate excellence

Let us recognize how your vigilance has contributed to a healthier hospital.

Support a cause

VigiLanz will make a financial donation in the winners’ honor to a charity of their choice.

Build your community

Your story will be showcased and shared with other VigiLanz customers.

Infection Prevention Winners

RISING STAR Lindsey Bruchhaus, MSN, RN, CPHQ

HOUSTON METHODIST, THE WOODLANDS HOSPITAL
THE WOODLANDS, TX

Recognized for:
Effective cross-departmental use of a VigiLanz tool at one hospital in the health system. The solution can now be used throughout the system.

Result:

  • Uses VigiLanz’s microbiology reports to capture culture collection date, discharge date, sensitivity results, and physician information
  • Automated reports are emailed to relevant clinicians
  • Physicians can access real-time reports and make antibiotic adjustments as needed

Overall benefit:

  • Improved efficiency, which has enabled the system to make rapid patient safety improvements.
  • Decreased costs due to identifying more opportunities to de-escalate antibiotics
  • Improved performance in meeting length of stay targets

FIVE STAR PATIENT CARE Infection Prevention Team

PHOENIX CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL
PHOENIX, AZ

Recognized for:
Building a rule to better identify blood contamination cultures in the ED

Result:

  • Enabled the team to view blood draw contamination information in real time
  • Enabled better identification of patients who had contaminated specimens rather than true infections

Overall benefit:

  • Reduced the number of return visits and readmissions
  • Reduced unnecessary antibiotic use
  • Eliminated unnecessary costs

THEY DID WHAT? WOW Industrial Hygiene Team

CHILDREN’S HEALTHCARE OF ATLANTA
ATLANTA, GA

Recognized for:
Using the ICRA tool at a very high volume as they manage major construction projects

Result:

  • More efficient and thorough logging of all ICRA permits
  • Improved tracking of ICRAs in real time
  • Elimination of paper and printing costs

Overall benefit:

  • Cost savings and improved work flows, communication, and a safer construction experience for staff, patients, families, and construction workers
  • Clearer and smarter decision-making related to contractor partnerships

STANDING OVATION Epidemiology and Infection Prevention Department

UCI MEDICAL CENTER
ORANGE, CA

Recognized for:
Developing rules to support CLISA (Central Line Insertion Site Assessment) scoring, part of a program to reduce CLABSI rates

Result:

Established action items and expectations for the bedside nurse and treating physician for each of the CLISA score levels (higher score levels correlated with higher CLABSI risk)

Overall benefit:

  • Helped the team identify high-risk central lines for targeted intervention
  • Now maintain CLABSI standardized infection ratios (SIRs) consistently at 0.5 or below

LOOK OUT WORLD; ONE TO WATCH Epidemiology and Infection Control Team

ST. BERNARDS MEDICAL CENTER
JONESBORO, AR

Recognized for:
Using VigiLanz tools to better identify multiple infection types and identify patients requiring isolation

Result:

  • More easily and quickly identify if a patient requires an isolation
  • More easily and quickly identify and prioritize surgical site infections, CLABSI infections, and other reportable infections to the health department and NHSN

Overall benefit:

  • Improved efficiency and reduced costs
  • Improved quality, including reducing CLABSI infections and C. Diff infections by over half

Pharmacy Winners

RISING STAR Brock Taylor, PharmD

ADVENTIST HEALTH AND RIDEOUT
MARYSVILLE, CA

Recognized for:
Improving use of VigiLanz with rule refinement, and promoting its use across 19 additional hospitals in the Adventist Health System

Result:

  • More targeted and appropriate alerts issued to clinicians and leadership
  • Significant reduction in antibiotic use, and now meeting national standards for antibiotic utilization
  • Significant reductions in C. diff infections

Overall benefit:

  • Improved efficiency and reduced annual antibiotic expenses by $500,000
  • Proactive interventions and better clinical outcomes

FIVE STAR PATIENT CARE Jeremy Frens, PharmD, BCPS-AQ ID

PULMONIX AT CONE HEALTH
GREENSBORO, NC

Recognized for:
Developing out-of-the-box uses for VigiLanz, including:

  • Using VigiLanz data mining to identify areas of improvement and create care bundles to standardize patient care
  • Creating VigiLanz rules to aid with time-sensitive recruitment across the health system for a clinical trial

Result:

  • Improved system-wide interventions for treating staph aureus bacteremia, and enterococcal and candida bloodstream infections
  • Real-time alerts allow the research team to communicate to treatment teams, resulting in Tamiflu administration to hospitalized patients with Flu A on a more timely basis

Overall benefit:

  • Reduction in readmissions from staph aureus bacteremia from 11 percent to 4 percent
  • Achieved recruitment goals and led recruitment nationwide clinical trial
  • Consistency of care and reduced costs

THEY DID WHAT? WOW John J. Veillette, PharmD, BCPS

INTERMOUNTAIN HEALTHCARE
SALT LAKE CITY, UT

Recognized for:
Using VigiLanz to complement a telehealth antimicrobial stewardship program

Result:

  • 40 percent reduction in facility-specific broad spectrum antibiotic use
  • Earlier identification of serious bacterial bloodstream infections

Overall benefit:

  • Improved care/access for rural patients at 17 small community hospitals
  • Reduced costs, more rapid interventions, and improved clinical outcomes

STANDING OVATION Katherine Perez, PharmD, BCID

HOUSTON METHODIST
HOUSTON, TX

Recognized for:
Integrating rapid diagnostics and antimicrobial stewardship to improve patient outcomes

Result:

  • Dashboard built, enabling 24/7 on-call visibility to patient cases even without EMR access
  • Significantly reduced time in intensive care, length of stay, and mortality for patients with gram-negative bloodstream infections
  • 43 percent reduction in hospital costs per patient

Overall benefit:

  • Earlier initiation of targeted antimicrobial therapy
  • Standardized care expanded system-wide to include all community hospitals
  • Reduced costs and better clinical outcomes

LOOK OUT WORLD; ONE TO WATCH Liza Vaezi, MSc., PharmD, DPLA, BCPS-AQ ID Laura Lavezo, PharmD Jamie Moran, MSN, RN, CIC Erica Lawrence, MSN, RN Punam Verma, PhD Chia Wang, MD

VIRGINIA MASON MEDICAL CENTER
SEATTLE, WA

Recognized for:
Effective cross-departmental use of VigiLanz to predict C. diff infection risk

Result:

  • Significant decrease in hospital-onset CDI rates and antimicrobial days of therapy
  • Better targeting of at-risk patients

Overall benefit:

  • Improved efficiency and reduced costs
  • Proactive interventions and better clinical outcomes

Nominees

Margaret Baker

Adventist Health Bakersfield

Pharmacy Department

Hoag Hospital

Joni Freitas

Adventist Health Castle

James Constable, PharmD

Houston Methodist Baytown

Pharmacy Department

Adventist Health Ukiah Valley

Caitlin Corker Relph, PharmD, MAT

Magnolia Regional Health Center

Pharmacy Department

Antelope Valley Hospital

Zina Gugkaeva, PharmD

Maury Regional Medical Center

Amber Miller

Antelope Valley Hospital

Infection Prevention Team

Mount Sinai Health System

Infection Prevention Team

Capital Region Medical Center

Breanne Chipman, PharmD

Park City Hospital

Pharmacy Department

Chambersburg Hospital

Matthew Thielbar, PharmD, BCPS

Parkview Medical Center

Raghav Tirupathi, MD

Chambersburg Hospital

Pharmacy Department

Riverside University Health System Medical Center

Pharmacy and Antimicrobial Stewardship Teams

Freeman Health System

Read About Our Winners

Discover the creative ways that our star customers have made their hospitals a safer place with VigiLanz.