Ascension is one of only 42 health systems nationwide selected by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to pioneer an innovative initiative focused on sustainably accelerating the implementation of practice-changing research results into clinical care to improve patients’ health outcomes.
As a participant in PCORI’s Health Systems Implementation Initiative (HSII), Ascension will deploy its expertise in healthcare delivery to develop and implement sustainable strategies to adopt new evidence-based practices. The ultimate goal is to reduce the estimated 17-year lag between publication of research that demonstrates the ability of treatments to improve patients’ outcomes and to advance the widespread uptake of these treatments in clinical practice.
Ascension’s Mission calls us to provide compassionate, personalized care to all, especially people living in poverty and most vulnerable. Our health ministry is dedicated to spiritually centered, holistic care that sustains and improves the health of individuals and communities. Our commitments align with the goals of the HSII to implement evidence-based, best practices to improve health in our real-world setting. As a learning organization, we disseminate our learnings and clinical improvements across our organization, through implementing standardized structures and processes and evaluating metrics to enhance outcomes.
“Ascension has been keenly interested in PCORI’s HSII initiative because of our commitment to continually identify the most effective ways to deliver the right care to the right patient at the right time,” said Dr. Richard Fogel, Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer, Ascension. “This initiative is aligned with our Mission and our commitment to lead with quality for the patients and communities that we’re privileged to serve.
“This critical work requires continuous collaboration between physician and nursing leadership to help advance seamless, personalized patient care and the ongoing implementation of evidence-based practices to improve health outcomes — opportunities further supported by our participation in this initiative,” said Sally Deitch, MSN, RN, FACHE, Executive Vice President, Nursing and Operations Infrastructure, Ascension.
Ascension Chief Quality Officer Dr. Mohamad Fakih and Senior Director for Evidence Based Practice and Implementation Science Dr. Ellen Fineout-Overholt will work closely as project co-leads to ensure the direct impact of HSII programs to benefit patients across the continuum of care, including securing the necessary resources to drive the adoption and sustainability of best practices in virtually any context and at multiple sites throughout Ascension.
Through the HSII Learning Network, Ascension and other participating health systems will learn from one another about best implementation practices, evaluation metrics, and other factors integral to sustainable implementation. Through the network, participants will also advise PCORI on topics of interest for future implementation projects.
HSII participants collectively represent 800 hospitals serving 79 million unique patients—nearly a quarter of the U.S. population—across 41 states and the District of Columbia. In addition to health systems like Ascension, they include academic medical centers, community-based systems, integrated healthcare delivery and finance systems, safety net health systems, other faith-based systems, public health care delivery systems and a medical center within the Veterans Health Administration. See the full list on PCORI’s website.
“We welcome the opportunity to work with Ascension and the other health systems participating in this groundbreaking initiative that will leverage their knowledge and experience to facilitate practice change and improve care based on results of PCORI-funded research,” said PCORI Executive Director Nakela L. Cook, M.D., M.P.H. “The HSII participants’ efforts will lay the groundwork for future expansion and broader implementation by demonstrating pathways to uptake and sharing lessons learned across health systems.”
HSII is part of a portfolio of PCORI-funded efforts that aim to improve the awareness, uptake and use of results from patient-centered comparative effectiveness research. PCORI is an independent, non-profit organization that funds comparative clinical effectiveness research, which provides patients, their caregivers and clinicians with the evidence to make better-informed health and healthcare decisions. PCORI is committed to seeking input from a broad range of stakeholders to guide its work.
