Our History
In 2003, a statewide quality collaborative was born through the innovative leadership and foresight of the MHA Board of Trustees. The MHA Keystone Center was founded as a result of a two-year federal grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality.
The partnership with patient safety experts was created after Peter Pronovost, MD, who at that time was an intensivist, anesthesiologist and senior vice president for patient safety and quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, sought out Michigan to be his laboratory. In choosing Michigan, Pronovost, in collaboration with the MHA, was able to engage more than 70 hospitals in ICU care across the state.
The MHA Keystone Center’s early charge was to identify and implement practices that improve healthcare safety and quality and reduce cost.
Over the years, the MHA Keystone Center has provided hundreds of learning opportunities for its members to share evidence-based practices. It has collected, analyzed and aggregated adverse event data to transform it into sustained clinical improvements and an overall culture shift in Michigan hospitals.
These efforts have drawn national and international recognition and have been adopted in hospitals and health systems across the world.
Below is a brief timeline of the MHA Keystone Center’s history.
The MHA Keystone Center was founded.
The federal Patient Safety & Quality Improvement Act set the stage for the creation of federally certified patient safety organizations (PSOs).
Awarded Crain’s Health Care Hero Award. Crain’s Detroit Business recognized the MHA Keystone Center with the Crain’s Health Care Hero Award for its work with the Johns Hopkins University Quality and Safety Research Group to eliminate bloodstream infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia in hospital ICUs. The project was the largest of its kind in the nation and helped hospitals move practices toward those that reduced the possibility of infections.
The MHA announced the formation of the MHA Patient Safety Organization (PSO). In January 2009, then Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed a state law that created the MHA PSO. At this time, MHA became the first organization in Michigan to establish a PSO.
The MHA Keystone Center PSO was certified in January 2009.
The MHA Keystone Center was awarded the John M. Eisenberg Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality Award from the National Quality Forum and The Joint Commission. The award showcased that two MHA Keystone Center interventions, eliminating central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) and the Comprehensive Unit-Based Safety Program (CUSP), had produced notable results in eliminating CLABSIs in Michigan hospital ICUs.
Awarded the Shining Star Award. The MHA Keystone Center received a Shining Star Award from Secretary of State Ruth Johnson in 2011. The Shining Star is the highest honor the Secretary of State gives to individuals and organizations for supporting organ donation.
The MHA Keystone Center Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) 1.0 was formed. The MHA Keystone Center was one of 27 state, regional, national and hospital system organizations to become a HEN to identify, share and implement best practices aimed at reducing preventable hospital-acquired conditions. Nearly 100 hospitals participated in the MHA Keystone HEN 1.0, which concluded in 2014.
Awarded the Dick Davidson Quality Milestone Award for Allied Association Leadership. The Dick Davidson Award is presented annually to a state, regional or metropolitan hospital association that, through its programs and activities, demonstrates exceptional organizational leadership and innovation in quality improvement and has made significant contributions to the measurable improvement of quality within its geographic area.
Awarded March of Dimes Strategic Partnership Award. The Michigan chapter of the March of Dimes presented the MHA Keystone Center with its Strategic Partnership Award, recognizing the association’s contribution in reducing the state’s infant mortality rate and its support in other areas of maternal and infant health.
The MHA Keystone Center PSO was re-certified in spring 2015, after an AHRQ-approved merger between the MHA Keystone Center and the MHA PSO.
The MHA Keystone Center Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) 2.0 was formed. In 2015, the MHA Keystone Center became one of 17 organizations contracted as a HEN, as part of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) national Partnership for Patients campaign. Partnering with the Illinois Health & Hospital Association (IHA) under HEN 2.0, MHA-IHA launched a joint quality improvement program uniting quality improvement strengths of two statewide hospital associations, to guide participating members through a variety of best practices, resources and collaboratives to reduce hospital-acquired conditions by 40 percent and preventable readmissions by 20 percent over the course of a year.
The MHA Keystone Center became the second U.S. state to partner with The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare on a state high reliability initiative.
The MHA Keystone Center became the first state in the U.S. to partner with Sepsis Alliance on a statewide public relations campaign to bring awareness to sepsis through sponsored events.
The MHA Keystone Center formed the MHA Keystone Center Hospital Improvement and Innovation Network (HIIN). The MHA Keystone Center in partnership with the IHA and the Wisconsin Hospital Association joined efforts under CMS’s national Partnership for Patients campaign in a multi-year grant to further reduce hospital-acquired conditions and preventable readmissions.
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