Hospital employee honored by UF Health for patient care, safety efforts

Veterinary technician manager Suzanne Pareau receives her Quality Hero award during a ceremony at UF Health on April 16. (Photo courtesy of Linda Allen)

Veterinary technician manager Suzanne Pereau receives her Quality Hero Award during a ceremony at UF Health on April 16. (Photo courtesy of Linda Allen)

Suzanne Pereau, a veterinary technician manager at the UF Small Animal Hospital, has received a 2018 Quality Hero Award from UF Health in the category of “Outstanding Safety Champion in a Clinical Role” for her efforts to advance quality and patient safety.

The awards were presented April 16 by the UF Health Sebastian Ferrero Office of Clinical Quality and Patient Safety during Patient Safety and Quality Week.

“In the short time that the UF Veterinary Hospitals have begun capturing safety events in 2015, Suzanne has emerged as a patient safety champion,” said Dr. Dana Zimmel, associate dean of clinical services and chief medical officer for the UF Veterinary Hospitals, in a letter nominating Pereau for the award.

“She is a leader in quality and patient safety, and is imparting her knowledge to her staff about the benefits of learning from our mistakes and making our systems better,” Zimmel said.

Zimmel noted that in Pereau’s managerial role, she is responsible for viewing patient safety reports for her service, emergency and critical care.  She carefully reviews each report and is always thinking of ways to improve processes to avoid making the same mistakes again.

Pereau also took the initiative to start patient safety rounds with the staff in her service as well as in the primary care ward. Her rounds require a staff member to do a presentation at their monthly quality meetings relating to a reported error, according to her nomination letter.

The presentation must follow very specific guidelines, including a thorough medical record review and conducting additional research relating to literature on the topic in question, as well as gathering input from faculty and staff. The presentation also must provide a brief description of what happened, what led to the event, findings from the literature describing if this error has happened anywhere else in the field and possible solutions for future prevention.

“Suzanne is a role model for other managers, and is looking at expanding the patient safety rounds by collaborating with other services,” Zimmel said.

Last year through the same program, two UF Veterinary Hospital medical directors, Dr. Chris Sanchez and Dr. Gareth Buckley, were honored as “Rookies of the Year” for their role in leading quality and patient safety efforts in the UF Veterinary Hospitals.

Under Zimmel’s leadership, Sanchez and Buckley helped the hospitals develop an incident reporting system to execute a patient quality and safety program.  In September 2017, Linda Allen, the Quality Officer was hired to lead and expand the program.

Share this article with others:
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Facebook
  • Digg
  • Twitter

May-June 2018

Horse Rescue

UF VETS rescues blind mare from sinkhole

A blind, pregnant mare was rescued from a sinkhole, thanks to the UF Veterinary Emergency Treatment Service.

Beneficiaries receiving hens in Jdaydet Artooz. The effect of the civil war on livestock and poultry production systems in Syria has been significant, as production has dropped by 50 percent, according to surveys conducted by UN FAO in the region. (Copyright FAO/Syria)

UF veterinarians share expertise remotely at Syrian poultry conference

Unable to travel to Syria, two UF faculty members found a way to share information about poultry diseases remotely with farmers from the war-torn country.

Students outside of a veterinary practice.

Unique program at UF hones veterinary students’ business acumen

A unique program at the UFCVM helps veterinary students hone their business skills.

Veterinary technician manager Suzanne Pareau receives her Quality Hero award during a ceremony at UF Health on April 16. (Photo courtesy of Linda Allen)

Hospital employee honored by UF Health for patient care, safety efforts

A UF Small Animal Hospital veterinary technician manager received a “Quality Hero” award for her efforts to advance patient safety.

2018 Distinguished Award winners

College names 2018 Distinguished Award Winners

Veterinary practitioners and educators were among those honored as 2018 Distinguished Award winners.

Phi Zeta Student Winners

Top CVM research highlighted at Phi Zeta Day

Research achievement in various categories was honored during this year’s Phi Zeta Day activities.

Dr. Paul Cooke

Physiological sciences chair named UF Research Professor

Dr. Paul Cooke has received a UF Research Foundation professorship.

Rico, a miniature horse treated successfully at UF for a limb deformity, has recuperated well from his injuries. (Photo courtesy of Shelby Lewis)

Miniature horse thriving after rare surgery at UF Large Animal Hospital

Thanks to rare surgery performed at UF’s Large Animal Hospital, a miniature horse named Rico has returned to his normal routines.

Dr. Alex Alvarez

Surgery resident honored by national group

Dr. Alex Alvarez received the American Association of Veterinary Clinicians’ 2018 Resident Award.

...also in this issue

People

News

Around the College