The American Hospital Association (AHA) has recognized WellSpan Health for its leadership and improvement in quality and safety by naming it a finalist for AHA's 2022 Quest for Quality Prize.

WellSpan was honored for its work to improve equity in health screenings, develop community partnerships to help their neighbors lead healthy lives, and harness technology to help save lives. The work is driven by WellSpan's mission to provide exceptional care for all and build lifelong wellness and healthy communities. 

As a special thank you, the Quest for Quality Committee created a video about WellSpan's leadership in innovation in advancing health for all those in the community (see the video to the right). It was recently shared during the Quest for Quality ceremony in San Diego.

The AHA noted WellSpan's work in three particular areas: 

• To support its focus on health equity, WellSpan dug into its electronic health record system to understand breast cancer screening rates by race and discovered an opportunity for improvement. The system's efforts increased the overall screening rate for all patient groups but because of additional resources, screening rates among Black and Hispanic women increased faster, thereby narrowing the gap between groups.  
• WellSpan has partnered with a wide variety of area leaders and groups ranging from deacons to school teachers to police officers to improve the health of its communities. Using these and other community connections has led to an improvement in health indicators including maternal morbidity, COVID-19 mortality, and COVID-19 vaccination rates. WellSpan's COVID-19 work in this area also has garnered state accolades.  
• WellSpan also identified higher-than-expected sepsis mortality rates, which led to the creation of an RN-staffed telemonitoring team to allow for early identification of sepsis, timely initiation of treatment, and ongoing monitoring. These efforts have saved the lives of 350 patients with a principal diagnosis of sepsis in the past three years. WellSpan has earned national recognition for this work. 

The AHA said the work of WellSpan and others recognized by the award are leading the way for improving care across the country.

"This year's honorees have made outstanding contributions in elevating the quality of care they provide each day to their patients and communities," said Rick Pollack, AHA's president and CEO. "The commitments from these organizations will inspire more hospitals and systems to lead in advancing health care in America."