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Ashley Hayes ReportingMore and more lives are being saved thanks to a nationwide effort called "100,000 lives."
A year and a half ago, hospitals across the country worked together to reduce medical errors and preventable deaths. The Universtity of Utah participated in this program. It was a major undertaking, but obviously invaluable.
122,300 lives, including 494 in Utah. To give you a little perspective, that's enough people to nearly fill Rice-Eccles stadium three times.
Twenty-eight hospitals in Utah participated in the safety campaign. Those hospitals were asked to adopt one of six recommended medical practices using specific steps to closely monitor for drug reactions, central line infections, and ventilator associated pneumonia, to name a few.
The U had already been working on quality improvements when they joined "100,000 lives." They've focused on reducing their numbers of surgery infections by paying better attention to when they administered antibiotics. As a teaching hospital, they also have on-call residents who can quickly respond to intensive care needs.
Overall, hospitals in the campaign accounted for three-fourths of hospital beds in the country and 80 percent of discharges.
Some hospitals didn't have the patient population to particiapte, but the campaign is ongoing and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement hopes "100,000 lives" will motivate all hospitals to adopt their practices by next year.
In saving 494 lives, Utah hospitals exceeded their original goal by almost 50 lives, which sounds like a small number, by not if one of those 50 is your loved one.
