For Immediate Release:
Media Contact: Sarah Darcy
June 8, 2007
(781) 340-8970
South Shore Hospital Nurses to Participate
in National Program to Revolutionize Patient Care
South Weymouth, MA — South Shore Hospital has been selected to participate in Transforming Care at the Bedside (TCAB), a national program designed to help front-line nurses create, test and implement changes to dramatically improve patient care on medical and surgical units.
South Shore Hospital was one of only 50 hospitals in the nation selected to participate in TCAB and is one of only six hospitals participating in Massachusetts. South Shore Hospital joins a select group seeking to make often simple but powerful changes to allow nurses to spend the vast majority of their time caring directly for patients.
South Shore Hospital’s nursing staff will launch the program in January, 2008. “Our goal is to increase the time nurses spend at the bedside to 70 percent. The key is to have the front-line staff nurses assess the process of care and streamline the work environment. He or she is the one using these systems and working in the bedside environment,” says Karen Conley, RN, MSN, director of medical, surgical and critical care services at South Shore Hospital. “We will be implementing some already-proven system changes and also testing new changes of our own,” says Conley of the two-year program.
TCAB was launched in 2003 by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). By targeting one area of the health care delivery system—bedside care on a standard medical or surgical unit—the program aims to enhance the quality of patient care and service, create more effective care teams, improve patient and staff satisfaction, and improve staff retention. The American Organization for Nurse Executives (AONE) is helping facilitate the program in hospitals across the nation with funding from RWJF.
South Shore Hospital is a tax-exempt, charitable provider of acute, emergency, outpatient, home health, and hospice care to the people of Southeastern Massachusetts.
South Shore Hospital employs 3,500 full- and part-time employees and features Southeastern Massachusetts’ largest and most clinically diverse medical staff, with more than 800 members.
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