Brook Berson -- A Passion for Patient Safety
Presidential Award winner ensures the best products are used in patient care
Monday, April 16, 2007
Durham, NC -- Brooke Berson has a passion for safety that has literally kept her up at night.
As director of Clinical Resource Management, part of her job is to keep tabs on the safety of any product used at the patient’s bedside, from linens to gauze to central lines. Her goal is to make sure no recalled medical supply lasts a day at Duke.
In 2005, she helped initiate the use of a web-based recall system that alerts Duke University Health System to any products that need to be removed from the shelves. One night, that diligence helped keep a recalled product out of a patient’s body.
Jane Pleasants, assistant vice president of Duke University Health System’s Procurement and Supply Chain, remembers how Berson leapt into action on a Friday evening. “It was a time when most staff members were leaving work for an enjoyable weekend,” she says. “Brooke checked the alert tool and found an unusual message that indicated there was a problem with human tissue that is often used in back and spine procedures. She immediately contacted the manufacturer and found that the health system had received some of the affected product.”
Clinical/Professional-Non ManagerialPresidential Award
Brooke Berson, procurement
Presidential Meritorious Award
Nicole Greeson, occupational and environmental safety
Azeddine Cherugi and Nouria Belmoulaoud, interpreter services, international patient services
Robert Dunston, Davis Ambulatory Surgical Center
Anne Viola, hospital operating room
Elizabeth Barry, law school computing
|
Berson then contacted operating room staff late into the evening to find the recalled tissue, and didn’t stop until every last one was removed from stock. As it turned out, a patient was scheduled to undergo a procedure using that kind of tissue the next morning, so Berson’s efforts were timely.
Further investigation revealed that Berson’s search-and-removal mission took place even before the Food and Drug Administration published an official notification about the recall. On average, it takes a hospital a minimum of 45 days from the time of notification to locate a recalled product and remove it from the shelves.
For her commitment to safety and going beyond the call of duty, Berson has received the 2006 Presidential Award in the Clinical/Professional-Non Managerial category.
In her 19 years at Duke, Berson has held her current position for seven. In her role, she has trained more than 400 staff members to use the alert tool, and the practice at Duke is modeled by other health systems across the country. “Her commitment does not stop with the best practice she has put in place to provide the infrastructure for the program,” Pleasants says. “She responds and triages alerts 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Each day a product remains in a hospital is considered an “at-risk” day, and Berson is proud to share that Duke had successfully avoided 600 at-risk days to date. She attributes this to Duke’s dedication to safe practices. “This is an organization that really learns from past experience, everyone is very involved from senior leadership on down,” she says. “We have a very engaged culture of safety.”
As a clinician and nurse, patient safety has been paramount in Berson’s practice, she says. “I consider this job an extension of my nursing practice,” she says. “Patient safety was part and parcel of what I did as a nurse, so this job was a perfect fit. In this position, I feel like I'm supporting the patients and supporting the staff. I feel really good about that."
