Quality hall of fame event breeds local medical innovation

The event designed to improve patient care and the YRMC hospital experience - 13 On Your Side's Luis Lopez reports.

YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) - On Thursday, teams from the Yuma Regional Medical Center's different departments got together for some friendly competition. However, it was all in the name of improvement.

The Quality Hall of Fame event is in it's third year running, after being cancelled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event came back in full force.

Each team presented a project to a panel of judges. The projects were split into five different categories, ranging from customer and patient experience, sustainability, and even COVID-19 innovation.

Louie Gradias, one of the judges, says that the event as a whole is rewarding, and that it even helps the entire community.

“We are frequently and commonly looking for ways to improve the quality of care here in the community as well as trying to reduce the cost for people, so when our teams and when these groups of doctors and nurses get together to try to help that, it’s a real rewarding process,” Gradias said.

While the projects were officially presented Thursday, all of them are already been underway, with many already having an impact.

Kristina McNair, who oversees improvement at YRMC, says that while the judges may end up picking some of the best, the event serves as a way of honoring every team’s efforts.

“All of these projects are active, active projects that are currently impacting our workflows and patients directly, so again this is just a really big celebration to honor and acknowledge all the hard work that our team members have done this year,” McNair said.

Winners from each category will be announced on Oct 27th.

However, the real winners will be the hospital staff and patients, who will get a better hospital as a result.