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The University of Maryland Hospital for Children is the first on the East Coast to earn a prestigious "Gold Seal of Approval" from The Joint Commission for its pediatric asthma program. The certification is an optional level of approval that the Joint Commission provides for certain "disease-specific centers," or DSC, within a medical center.
"The certification of our Pediatric Asthma Program is evidence of the Hopsital for Children's commitment to providing the highest quality patient care to our children," says Keyvan Rafei, M.D., chairman of the multidisciplinary Pediatric Asthma Steering Committee and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
For example, Rafei says, "As part of our commitment to evidence-based medicine, we have developed a pediatric asthma pathway that preferentially uses metered-dose inhalers with valved holding chambers to treat children with acute asthma. Most institutions still use nebulizers to treat acute asthma, possibly because of the false reassurance clinicians, patients and parents get from seeing the mist of a nebulizer -- which, in reality, indicates wasted medication."
The program also produced patient-education materials, such as a booklet that focuses on the "123s of Asthma Care," and emphasizes recognizing bronchospasm and inflammation in children with asthma, indentifying and avoiding triggers and using medications to control persistent chronic asthma.
The University of Maryland Medical Center also won recertification as a Primary Stroke Center through the DSC program. The successful recertification was particularly satisfying, because the unannounced inspection visit from The Joint Commission came on the day before Thanksgiving. But then, a stroke can happen at any time, too.
"The system was 100 percent prepared, even during a holiday," says Karen Yarbrough, M.S., C.R.N.P., program director for the Maryland Stroke and Brain Attack Center. "All the people who needed to be here were here, holiday or not."
"The stroke certification initiative is a nationwide effort to improve the care of stroke patients by assuring that qualified practitioners are available at certified hospitals," says Barney Stern, M.D., director of the medical center's clinical stroke program and professor of neurology at the UM School of Medicine.
Stern says the state is also expected to announce shortly a list of hospitals that are certified as "stroke ready."
"Both the Joint Commission and state of Maryland stroke certification process require a joint effort between hospital administration and care providers," Stern says.
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