Great Plains Regional Medical Center (GPRMC) is the recipient of the 2012 Quest for Excellence Award.

The Nebraska Hospital Association (NHA) announced Thursday that is one of two recipients honored.

The Quest for Excellence Award is a joint initiative of the NHA, CIMRO of Nebraska, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and the Nebraska Association for Healthcare Quality, Risk and Safety.  The award showcases exemplary and reproducible models of patient care to the rest of the healthcare community.  This was the ninth year for the award, designed to recognize and reward hospital for their quality improvement achievements.

GPRMC was recognized for the successful implementation of a process to reduce medication administration errors using technology.

GPRMC’s quality improvement project resulted in a significant reduction in medication administration errors and elimination of harmful medication errors.

The results demonstrated active administrative support, education and training, utilizing of technology and electronic documentation and an impressive decrease in administration errors, sustained over time.

In the award application, GPRMC stated, “GPRMC has successfully implemented medication barcode scanning which has improved patient safety by reducing the number of medication errors occurring in our facility.  Decreasing medication errors and increasing scanning compliance rates show that this change is sustainable and has been hardwired into the workflow of the nursing staff.  This initiative is an excellent example of GPRMC’s mission to provide the kind of healthcare we would want for our families.”

The other recipient of the award was Fremont Area Medical Center.