NAMES IN THE NEWS

Knoxville Ophthalmology ASC Wins AAAHC Award

AUGUST 2022

Knoxville Ophthalmology ASC LLC, dba Eye Surgery Center of East Tennessee, in Knoxville, Tennessee, won the Bernard A. Kershner Innovations in Quality Improvement (QI) Award from the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC), according to a release.

Named in honor of the late Bernard A. Kershner, a leader in ambulatory healthcare and distinguished past chair of the AAAHC Institute Board of Trustees, this prestigious award program recognizes AAAHC-accredited organizations that successfully implemented meaningful changes in their operations to boost quality of care, patient safety and overall efficiency through QI. Primary care and surgical/procedural organizations submitted detailed descriptions of completed QI studies for consideration, and an expert panel identified finalists in each category.

Knoxville Ophthalmology ASC's “Prevention of Endophthalmitis” study won in the Surgical/Procedural Care category of this year's Bernard A. Kershner Award. The study focused on preventing postoperative surgical site infections and complications. Upon identifying a spike in endophthalmitis cases, the center adopted a multidisciplinary approach to conduct in-depth infection prevention audits in the preop, intraop and postoperative areas and targeted all potential exposures. Following process improvement and continuous monitoring, the facility surpassed the quality benchmarking report average infection rate of 0.223, achieving zero infections, according to the release.

University Health Services, University of Oregon's “Towards a Culture of Best Practice Antibiotic Stewardship: Treatment of Acute Bronchitis” study won in the Primary Care category of the award.

“I enjoyed learning about each of these quality improvement studies," said Julie Lynch, RN, director of the AAAHC Institute for Quality Improvement, in the release. "You can see how each organization rallied around patient safety and overall efficiency in ambulatory organizations. This year’s Bernie winners addressed the question of how to make a difference in patient lives. They demonstrated measurable performance improvement, going beyond simple changes to transform their culture, build teamwork, and improve staff communication.”

Learn more about the QI studies recognized by the Bernard A. Kershner Awards through the years, all past winners and their results across the surgical/procedural and primary care categories.