ICU Innovations

MUSC’s ICU Innovations program is a cost-effective means to improve patient safety, quality, and best practice implementation with substantial return on investment through ICU-related outcomes. ICU Innovations is an interprofessional quality improvement program created by MUSC clinical leaders and offered to ICU teams at community hospitals of all sizes. Our experienced consulting team will collaborate with your multidisciplinary ICU team to create successful evidence-based quality improvement programs and related implementation that yield quality and financial benefits for your organization.

Choose from a menu of quality improvement topics with significant financial impact:

  • Change Management in the ICU
  • Care of the Mechanically Ventilated Patient
  • Pain, Agitation, and Delirium
  • ICU Mobility
  • Early Recognition and Treatment of Sepsis
  • Hospital Acquired Infections
  • Cardiopulmonary Arrest: Beyond ACLS
  • Optimizing ICU Nutrition
  • Palliative and End-of-Life Care
  • Nursing Sensitive Quality Indicators

Specific observable outcomes experienced by current partners:

  • Doubling of compliance with the severe sepsis/septic shock CMS bundle
  • Improved adherence to ventilator management best practices
  • Integration of spontaneous breathing and awakening trails to reduce duration of mechanical ventilation
  • Improved compliance with sedation and delirium assessment and treatment
  • Adoption of an early ICU mobility program that saw ventilated patients ambulating within two months of first seminar

Current Partners

ICU Innovations

AnMed Health

800 North Fant Street

Anderson, SC 29621

ICU Innovations Carolina Pines Regional

Carolina Pines Regional Medical Center

1304 West Bobo Newsom Highway

Hartsville, SC 29550

ICU Innovations Kershaw Health

Kershaw Health

1315 Roberts Street

Camden, SC 29020

ICU Innovations Self Regional Healthcare

Self-Regional Healthcare

1325 Spring Street

Greenwood, SC 29646

ICU Innovations Tuomey

Tuomey Healthcare System

129 North Washington Street

Sumter, SC 29150

Our Team

Dee Ford, M.D.

Dee W. Ford, M.D, MSCR

Professor of Medicine
Medical Director

Dee W. Ford, MD, MSCR, is a Professor of Medicine and Division Director for MUSC’s Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Allergy, and Sleep Medicine.  She established, and serves as the Medical Director of, the Tele-ICU and ICU Innovations Critical Care Outreach programs. She has over 15 years of experience leading multi-disciplinary ICU quality improvement and program implementation projects, including serving as the Medical Director for MUSC’s Medical Intensive Care Unit. She is widely recognized for her collaborative and multi-disciplinary approach to provider and patient engagement.

Dr. Ford became active in telehealth in 2009. By 2013, she was tapped by MUSC leadership to develop a strategic plan for accelerating MUSC’s telehealth programs. In 2017, she became the Program Director for MUSC’s federally designated Telehealth Center of Excellence.

Dr. Ford is from Anderson, South Carolina, and received her bachelor's degree in biology from the University of South Carolina where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. She received her M.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha honor society. Dr. Ford completed her internal medicine residency training at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and attended the Medical University of South Carolina for her pulmonary/critical care fellowship training.

 


Shay McLeod, MSN, RN, CCRN
Nurse Manager for Acute Services

 

 

 

Shay McLeod, MSN, RN, CCRN is the Nurse Manager for Acute Services for the Center of Telehealth. Shay started her career at MUSC in 2007. First as a patient care technician, then onto bedside nursing in critical care. Most recently, she served as a Clinical Practice Nurse Expert in the Medical-ICU working on quality measures and supporting bedside staff in training and practice.

Shay earned her Bachelor of Health Science, Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and a Master of Science of Nursing with a concentration in Administration. She is heartened by the direction of MUSC Telehealth Acute Services to prioritize patient care and committed to collaborating with partners both within the Center for Telehealth and across the state.