Twenty-one hospitals across the five state Region Mid-America have come together to focus on improving clinical quality and patient safety by increasing the amount of time nurses have available at the patient's bedside. A VHA survey showed that nurses spend less than 30 percent of their time in direct patient care.

The hospitals in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska have joined what's known as a Rapid Adoption Network (RAN), a virtual network that will allow them to share information about their clinical practices for the purpose of accelerating the pace of clinical improvement, cutting improvement time to less than one year.

The RAN is sponsored by VHA Inc., the national health care alliance. A unifying focal point for the RAN will be the clinical blueprint VHA has developed to help its members improve the patient experience, a broad objective that many hospitals are now focusing on more intensely as a result of both government and private payor mandates. This blueprint looks at issues, such as: involving the patient in goal setting, doing change of shift reporting at the bedside, hourly rounding, and use of communication boards.

According to a VHA press release, the hospitals in are working together on this project are: Anderson Hospital, Maryville, Illinois; Atchison, Atchison, Kansas; BryanLGH, Lincoln, Nebraska; Cushing Memorial Hospital, Leavenworth, Kansas; Decatur Memorial, Decatur, Illinois; Faith Regional, Norfolk, Nebraska; Freeman Health, Joplin, Missouri; Jennie Edmundson Memorial Hospital, Council Bluffs, Iowa; Labette Health, Parsons, Kansas; Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital, Hastings, Nebraska; McDonough District Hospital, Macomb, Illinois; Memorial Bellville, Bellville, Illinois; Montgomery County, Red Oak, Iowa; Passavant Area Hospital, Jacksonville, Illinois; Pratt Regional, Pratt, Kansas; Saint Luke's South, Kansas City, Missouri; Saint Lukes Health System, Kansas City, Missouri; Saint Lukes Lee's Summit, Lee Summit, Missouri; Saint Lukes Northland, Kansas City, Missouri; Sarah Bush Lincoln, Matoon, Illinois; Skaggs, Branson, Missouri.

"By working together, meeting in real time and virtually, we can share information about how we each perform within the network, enabling us to achieve rapid clinical improvements and provide better care for our patients," said Joanne Nathem, chief nurse executive at Montgomery County Hospital. "VHA's Rapid Adoption Network takes the delivery of quality care to the next level. The clinical blueprints VHA has developed will serve as the foundation for our quality improvement efforts going forward."

"VHA's clinical improvement platform focuses on helping members become leading performers," said Trent Haywood, M.D., J.D., chief medical officer at VHA. "Our programmes and services will help guide members towards success and improve clinical care across the country."

"Hospitals across the state are under significant pressure from both federal and state insurance programmes and private insurers to improve quality, and participation in this effort will help these hospitals meet that mandate," said Cindy Spiess, senior director of quality and performance improvement at VHA's Mid-America regional office in St. Louis.

A Rapid Adoption Networks is one component of VHA's overall clinical improvement platform.