Quality and Safety Matter

We look at how we’re doing by tracking and analyzing information about our patients’ “outcomes.” The easiest way to think of an outcome is this:  It's what happens as a result of medical care.

Along with having our staff avoid infections by taking the proper precautions (like washing hands) and having our teams access patient information from a single electronic medical record (which triggers warnings about any potential medication concerns), we also involve you, the most important member of your child's care team.

Our goal is to achieve excellent outcomes across all of our medical and surgical specialties—so we can give the children we serve consistent, top-rate care.

Doing Whatever It Takes to Safeguard Your Child

We go the extra mile to protect your child.  For example, we use bar code scanners to verify patient identity before we give any medications or perform any procedures. This helps us protect your child and reduce the chance of giving the wrong medication or performing an incorrect procedure.

Our Quality & Safety Outcomes

Every specialty has its own way of measuring success. Here are a few outcomes, spanning many of our specialties, that we’re especially proud of—not just because they showcase how well we’re doing, but because they highlight our commitment to consistently giving kids excellent care.

Asthma: Hospital Readmissions
Asthma is the top reason kids miss school and visit hospital emergency rooms each year. But we want to make sure that children who need to be admitted because of asthma don’t have to be readmitted for often-preventable asthma emergencies.		        Oncology: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) Survival Rate
ALL is the most common pediatric cancer diagnosis. Our high-quality cancer care has helped us achieve an overall 5-year survival rate that’s much better than the national average.
   
Critical Care: Central Line Infections
Avoiding central line infections is key to keeping the children in our pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) as healthy as possible. We take every precaution to ensure that our patients don’t get a central line infection.
        Patient Mortality: Giving Even the Sickest Children the Best Chance at Life
We treat children with all kinds of diseases and conditions, including complex and terminal illnesses. No matter what a child’s predicted outcome, we do whatever it takes to improve the lives and longevity of our patients. And our rates are much better than the national average.
   
Dyslexia: Early Reading Intervention
Pinpointing literacy challenges in preschool can help set kids on the path to reading success once they enter kindergarten. Nemours’ BrightStart! program is helping kids who have trouble early on become full-fledged readers.
        Primary Care: Immunizations
Our commitment to preventing serious and potentially deadly diseases is demonstrated by our long-standing efforts to give routine immunizations to as many children as we can. We want to ensure the health of not just our own young patients, but also the public’s well-being.
   
ENT: Tonsillectomies
A major measure of a successful tonsillectomy is when there’s little to no bleeding after the surgery.  Our tonsillectomy bleeding rates are well below the national average, which means a faster, smoother recovery.		        Solid Organ Transplants: Liver Transplant Survival Rate
Our Solid Organ Transplant specialists oversee one of the largest pediatric liver and kidney transplant programs in the country. Our liver transplant outcomes make us one of the best.
   
Heart Defects: Surgery
About two-thirds of patients with critical heart disease are diagnosed as infants. So it’s often the tiniest hearts that need the most help—and as soon as possible. At the Nemours Cardiac Center, babies born with virtually any heart defect can be swiftly diagnosed and treated when it matters the most.		        Surgery: Infection Prevention
When your child needs an operation, the last thing you’re thinking about is a wound infection. We make every effort to ensure that children who require surgery don’t have to experience complications like an infection. Our rates are among the lowest—substantially beating the national average.
   
Obesity: Bariatric Surgery
Not only do teens who undergo bariatric surgery with us see a change in their appearance, many also find relief from other co-existing conditions that often come with being seriously obese.

        Surgery: Surgical Outcomes
We’re helping to lead a first-of-its-kind national effort to encourage other children's surgical programs to report their outcomes—to prevent complications and save lives. See how we compare (and excel) in different areas.
   

Our Process Measures

In addition to tracking our patients’ quality and safety results, we also measure how we’re doing as a children’s health system by taking a look at our processes—that is, the ways in which we deliver care:

Medication Safety
Our electronic medical record, called NemoursOne, has significantly improved medication safety throughout our health system. It automatically checks dosages, allergies to medications, and possible negative interactions with other medicines—which equates to far fewer medication errors.

Cardiology: Echocardiograms (ECHOs)
We’re constantly taking a look at the efficiency of our care—for example, how long you have to wait for test results, like an ECHO (a test for evaluating the structure of the heart and how it works).

Obesity: Recording Kids’ Body Mass Index (BMI)
We’ve set our own Nemours-wide goal to make sure that body mass index (or BMI, a calculation of weight and height that estimates body fat) is recorded in at least 80% of all of our patients at least once a year. By monitoring BMI, our goal is to intervene early for children who are becoming overweight to help prevent future medical conditions.

Primary Care: Nutritional Counseling
At Nemours, we’ve made preventing obesity one of our top priorities. Through Nemours Health & Prevention Services' (NHPS) groundbreaking program 5-2-1-Almost None, we’re giving kids and parents the guidance and support they need to make lifestyle choices that we hope will set the stage for a lifetime of healthy family habits.

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New Jersey

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