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Cooley Dickinson welcomes information regarding any concerns about patient care and safety within our organization. You may communicate these concerns to the Patient Relations Department (413-582-4970) or send us your feedback via our feedback form. Resolution of concerns is a top priority for Cooley Dickinson’s management team.

If concerns cannot be resolved through Cooley Dickinson Health Care, you may contact The Joint Commission’s Office of Quality Monitoring to report any concerns or to register complaints by calling 1-800-994-6610 or send an EMAIL.

At Cooley Dickinson Health Care, we hold ourselves to the highest quality and safety standards when it comes to delivering care to our patients. We strive to follow best practices to ensure that our patients receive the right care for their conditions. We are committed to being transparent with our performance so you can learn about Cooley Dickinson and compare us to other organizations as you and your family make your health care choices.

Click the links below to learn more about Cooley Dickinson’s quality and safety record from the other organizations that evaluate us:

Hospital Compare

The Joint Commission

The Joint Commission Quality Check

The Leapfrog Group

Massachusetts PatientCare Link

Quality & Patient Safety Overview

Health care quality and patient safety has been a national focus for more than a decade. Cooley Dickinson works to make care safer every day through identifying and addressing various safety opportunities in our health system. The best organizations have the courage to acknowledge these opportunities for change and learn from them to improve the care that is delivered to patients.

Purposeful Rounding Program

Patient Safety and Comfort are our Top Priority

Typically, hospitalized patients ring their call bells for 4 reasons:

pain/discomfort;
environment/they need something in their room,
elimination/help getting to the bathroom, and
position/they need help getting in a more comfortable position.

Cooley Dickinson nurses are trying to get ahead of the call bells – and help patients feel safer and more comfortable – by implementing a new purposeful rounding program. Nurses now actively assess patients on those four areas listed above when they visit a patient’s bedside.

According to Nursing Director Critical Care Ann LeBrun the nurses are already in a patient’s room whether it is to answer a call bell or to check on them.

“By focusing on 4 key areas – pain, environment, elimination, and position or PEEP – we help patients feel more comfortable and reassured. At the same time, we also get a status on each patient, which was something we had been doing, but it wasn’t as intentional.”

LeBrun says that with purposeful rounding, if someone needs to be re-positioned in bed, “we can help them and give them their medication during that same visit. Before this program, we might have given someone their medication, and then 15 minutes later the patient rang the call bell for assistance using the bathroom.

“This is just a better, more efficient way to provide care,” she added.

If a patient has left their room for an imaging exam or another reason, the nurse will leave a card on the patient’s bed to let them know the nurse has stopped by. The card lists questions that may help the patient think about what they may want to ask the nurse. (For example, for pain, we ask, do you feel any discomfort? If so, describe).

The Institute of Healthcare Improvement (IHI) endorsed timely hourly rounding as the best way to reduce call lights and fall injuries, and increase both quality of care and patient satisfaction.

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Quality & Patient Safety Overview

Purposeful Rounding Program

Patient Safety and Comfort are our Top Priority

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