Cincinnati Shriners Hospital for Children Awarded 2008 Innovative Solutions Award
McCullough-Hyde and The Christ Hospitals Earn Honorable Mention Recognition

March 13, 2008

Shriners Hospital for Children – Cincinnati is the 2008 recipient of the Greater Cincinnati Health Council’s third annual Innovative Solutions Award, created to celebrate unique approaches to clinical or non-clinical hospital process improvements, patient care initiatives, or innovative/creative change projects.

The Innovative Solutions Award was presented to Shriners at the Health Council’s twelfth annual Solutions Conference and Expo on March 6 at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center.

The Shriners project was one of ten submitted by area hospitals for consideration. Shriners won for its project to improve objective methods of evaluating pain in preverbal or nonverbal patients.

“A significant percent of our patient population is too young or too ill to verbally communicate their pain experience,” says Marla Barone, RN, nurse manager and team leader for the project. “With the use of the OPAS, we can improve overall outcome of pain assessment and management by providing an option to obtain objective and consistent measurement of pain in the preverbal pediatric population.”

The project entailed development and implementation of an Observational Pain Assessment Scale (OPAS), which is a behavioral pain rating scale used in combination with a complete pain assessment. With the scale, five behavioral categories – restlessness, muscle tension, facial expression, vocalization and wound guarding – are scored by level of intensity, with a higher score representing a higher level of pain.

According to Barone, an initial evaluation showed OPAS to be a valid and reliable tool to measure pain in patients up to 3 years old.

In addition, McCullough-Hyde Memorial Hospital in Oxford and The Christ Hospital received Honorable Mention recognition. McCullough-Hyde was recognized for its Professional Development Assistance Program, which provides financial assistance to individuals for education and training in a health care field in exchange for employment. The Christ Hospital was acknowledged for The Heart Link Program, an initiative designed to help patients with congestive heart failure transition from the hospital to home.

To apply for the award, each area hospital had the opportunity to submit one project for consideration. The winner and honorable mention recipients were selected from a group of nine total projects. The award selection panel primarily considered the project’s level of innovation. Other factors included project applicability, implementation and outcomes.

Representatives from Shriners Hospital for Children – Cincinnati accept the Greater Cincinnati Health Council’s Innovative Solutions Award. They are (from left): Sue Lloyd, RN; Marla Barone, RN; and Hospital Administrator Ronald Hitzler.

###