RUMFORD – Rumford Hospital Director of Health Information and Quality Deborah Oliver has submitted a proposal to present a storyboard at a national quality improvement forum.

The storyboard depicts the process that led to improvement in the hospital’s patient discharge process. The storyboard presentation has been juried into the 2006 Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care.

The discharge process improvement effort was initiated by the hospital’s discharge coordinator, Anne Dolloff, R.N., who also created the storyboard.

The competitive process of placing a storyboard at the forum includes a lengthy application to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, which sponsors the forum, host to about 6,000 quality improvement specialists from around the world. Only 100 storyboards were accepted.

Called “There’s no place like home – Improving the discharge process,” Dolloff’s storyboard illustrates the process of improvement through three main avenues: a new discharge check-off list for nursing; using physician-dictated discharge instructions; and redesigning the post-discharge telephone call.

The process improvement team that successfully reached it goals for the discharge process included registered nurses, physicians, the coordinator of health information, a medical/surgical unit secretary and the clinical quality review coordinator, Anne Marie Mahar.

“When we form a process improvement team, we make it truly interdisciplinary,” said Oliver, “because everyone has a role in any process. As hospital employees, regardless of our position, we are all responsible for quality every day.”

In addition to Oliver and Mahar, Rumford Hospital Director of Nursing Jane Aube will attend the forum in Orlando, Fla., in December.