Penny Wright & Kathy Liberatore
Patient safety comes first
Penny Wright, RN, CIC & Kathy Liberatore, RN, BSN, CIC
Monongahela Valley Hospital
Monongahela, PA
Kathy Liberatore and Penny Wright led a small team from several departments at Monongahela Valley Hospital in Monongahela, PA, to improve patient care and safety – and they made a big difference for patients and for the hospital. Kathy and Penny’s goal for the infection prevention program was to make surgical patients safer by ensuring recommended practices to improve the delivery of surgical prophylactic antibiotics. Within one year, the program reduced HAIs, saved money for the hospital and reached 100 percent of the initial goals for the program. The program expanded to other surgery areas and demonstrated even greater success. This patient safety process improvement program reduced the number of surgical site infections from 10 to 3 within three years and saved the hospital thousands of dollars.