Quality and Safety Data for Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital

Quality and Patient Safety: Our Focus

At Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, high quality care and patient safety are the foundations of clinical excellence. We believe in making the patient and family experience the best it can be, because every child deserves not only exceptional medical care, but also a healing environment filled with love, hope, and compassion. 

 Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital is proud to be a part of a 140+ network of children’s hospitals - Solutions For Patient Safety  (SPS)-working together to eliminate patient harm.  Continuous quality improvement is our goal and our journey to zero harm has us regularly evaluating our quality and safety performance. Very importantly, we rely on our patients and their families to partner with us. Sharing feedback allows us to create a better experience to meet each child’s needs.

 

Our Quality Measures: 

We track quality and safety indicators so that we can see where we are doing well, and identify areas for improvement. Although we look at many metrics, below is a small selection of data that we routinely measure. This section of our website is where we present how we are doing. 

Central Line Associated Blood Stream Infection (CLABSI): 

Sometimes when a child is very sick, a central line may be needed. This is a special type of IV that is placed into a large blood vessel to provide medications, nutrients, and fluids. Although this may be necessary, one of the risks to having a central line is a blood stream infection (CLABSI). Monitoring the CLABSI rate and our practices helps to decrease future events.  

Measurement

Central line associated blood stream infection (CLABSI) rate at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital has declined since 2022 as the network rate has increased.

Continuous Quality Improvement Practices

Children's Hospitals' Solutions for Patient Safety logo

At Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, we follow evidence-based guidelines to minimize the chance of a central line becoming infected. While the line is in place, the team monitors the site daily.   Collaboration between our infection prevention team, nurses, doctors, and leadership include regular discussions regarding necessity, dressing changes, and access and handling of the site.

© Copyright 2023, Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS). All rights reserved. This document was created as part of the quality assessment and peer review activities of SPS Learning Network, and the underlying information used to create this document is not subject to discovery pursuant to ORC Section 2305.25, 2305.251, 2305.252, and 2305.253. Any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this information is prohibited without the express permission of SPS.

Surgical Site Infection (SSI): 

There are times when a child may need surgery. The surgical site may be at risk for infection. At Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, we follow evidence-based guidelines to minimize the chance of a surgical site becoming infected. 

Measurement 

Total surgical site infection rate per 100 surgeries has decreased since 2021: rate in 2021 is 0.20; rate in 2022 is 0.19; rate in 2023 is 0.23; rate in 2024 is 0.21; rate in 2025 is 0.06.

Continuous Quality Improvement Practices

Collaboration between our infection prevention team, nurses, doctors, and leadership helps us to continuously monitor and make changes as needed to our surgery practices to reduce the likelihood of infection. Guidelines in place include proper use of antibiotics, pre-operative bathing treatments, operating room cleanliness,  and post-surgery incision care and education. 

HAND HYGIENE: 

Washing hands at key times with soap and water and the use of hand sanitizer are some of the most important steps that can be taken to get rid of germs and avoid spreading germs to those around you.  Proper hand hygiene is one of the most important things we at Joe DiMaggio can do to prevent infections. 

Measurement

Percent of direct observation of hand hygeine compliance has maintained nearly 100 percent since over the 4 quarters of 2025: 98 percent in Q1; 100 percent in Q2, and 99 percent in both Q3 and Q4.

Continuous Improvement Practices

Our teams are committed to preventing infections. Education to improve adherence to hand hygiene and education to staff on the importance of improving hand hygiene adherence is vital. We train all healthcare personnel to follow the 5 “moments” to hand washing as recommended by the World Health Organization. We partner with our patients and their families who also play a crucial role in the prevention of infections.

These 5 moments are:

  • Before touching a patient
  • Before clean/aseptic procedures
  • After body fluid exposure/risk
  • After touching a patient
  • After touching patient surroundings

Serious Adverse Serious Drug Events (ADE’s) 

We track and review all medication events, even if they do not cause harm. Tracking helps us improve patient safety. As you can see from the chart below, we are proud to report no adverse drug events resulting in serious patient harm. 

Measurement

The drug adverse event rate of Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital is 0.2 for both 2024 and 2025.

Continuous Improvement Practices

We continue to remain alert and proactive with our approach. We regularly adopt best practices that are shared by our peers through the Solutions for Patient Safety network. Our healthcare professionals follow strict medication safety protocols to prevent ADE’s. 

Patient Experience:

At Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, we believe in making the patient and family experience the best it can be, because every child deserves not only exceptional medical care, but also a healing environment filled with love, hope, and compassion. We strive to create an environment that fosters trust, empathy, and respect.  Feedback from our patients and family partners guides us toward providing better care and improved safety and quality results. 

Measurement: (compared to similar children’s hospitals)

“Likelihood of Recommending” Patient Experience Scores by Department
Department Q3 2025 Q4 2025 Q1 2026 Q2 2026
Emergency Department 88.3 85.7 89.6 89.2
Inpatient 96.2 96.2 97.5 94.1
Outpatient 97.2 97.5 97.2 96.1
Comparison to Percentiles:
  • Top Decile: 90%
  • Top Quartile: 75%
  • Above 50th Percentile: > 50%
  • Below 50th Percentile: < 50%
Source: Press Ganey. The score represent the Overall Rating
All Scores Represents raw official scores only

Continuous Quality Improvement Practices

Patient and family centered care is at the heart of Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. Our patient experience leaders round daily on our patients and families to better understand their experience. Daily patient and family centered rounds are conducted on all patients by our medical teams. We empower our patients and families to partner with us in all aspects of patient care, and we rely on their feedback to improve the patient experience.

Mortality

Overall Mortality. The percentage of pediatric deaths during hospitalization

Central line associated blood stream infection (CLABSI) rate at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital has declined since 2022 as the network rate has increased.

Treated and Released Patients: Emergency Department (ED) Arrival Time to ED Departure Time- Pediatrics

Horizontal bar chart titled “Pediatric ED Arrival to Departure Time (Treated & Released).” It compares average minutes for Joe DiMaggio and the Florida benchmark. Joe DiMaggio shows 130 minutes for July 2025 through June 2026, while the Florida benchmark shows 159 minutes for the benchmark period October 1, 2024 through September 1, 2025. Joe DiMaggio’s average is 29 minutes lower than the Florida benchmark, indicating better performance since lower times are better.