EASLEY — The South Carolina Hospital Association recently announced the hospitals that received the distinguished Zero Harm Award this year. Thirty hospitals earned 70 separate awards recognizing their successful infection prevention efforts. Baptist Easley received this honor for the second year, specifically for the elimination of hospital-acquired infections, with no bloodstream infections in 30 months and no surgical site infections of the knee in 12 months.

SCHA launched the Certified Zero Harm Awards program in 2013 to recognize South Carolina hospitals’ excellent progress in making care safer, specifically the elimination of hospital-acquired infections.

This program is part of the S.C. Safe Care Commitment, our state’s collective journey toward highly reliable health care. The awards not only celebrate sustained zero harm, but also encourage transparency within the hospital community, and inspire providers and clinical staff to continuously examine and improve existing processes. SCHA is very proud of the innovative work South Carolina hospitals are doing to ensure the safest possible care for every patient, every time.

Baptist Easley received an additional recognition for Safe Surgery Designation for utilizing the surgical safety checklist on every patient during every procedure. As one of seven hospitals in the state, Baptist Easley is continuing to work to make healthcare safe and highly reliable for our patients.

Each patient who visits the Baptist Easley operating room benefits from the surgical safety checklist before the induction of anesthesia, before the skin incision, and before the patient leaves the operating room.

More than 700,000 surgeries are performed in our state each year. The ultimate goal of Safe Surgery 2015: South Carolina is simple – to keep every patient safe during every one of those surgeries.

The use of a surgical safety checklist, similar to a pilot’s pre-flight checklist, has been shown to help surgical teams communicate effectively in the operating room. This can prevent harm to patients including infections, wrong site surgery and even death. Successful checklist use is predicted to save the lives of up to 500 South Carolinians each year.