UNC Anesthesiology congratulates the department’s PSQI team for winning the “Collaboration is Key” award at the 2023 UNC Health Quality Expo in November! Hosted annually by the system’s Office of Quality Excellence & Performance Improvement, the Quality Expo draws quality improvement teams from across UNC Health to network and learn from another on service line PSQI best practices. This year, the UNC Anesthesiology PSQI team received top honors in collaboration for its “Code OR Root Cause Analysis” project, which served to (1) improve digital and verbal communication between multiple teams including the Patient Logistics Center, Carolina Air Care, Emergency Department, Operating Room, Blood Bank, and Anesthesiology; and (2) allow UNC Health anesthesiology and surgery teams to ready critical resources such as blood products in preparation for emergent surgery for patients in extremis.

UNC Anesthesiology Vice Chair of Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Dr. Greg Balfanz noted: “This project relied on the expertise of professionals throughout the entire hospital system – OR, surgery, anesthesiology, IT, patient logistics, and transport to name a few. It also required a willingness from everyone to question every step of the process and not simply accept the dogmatic response of “that’s just how we do things”.