Better care through shared data: Saint Francis Health System’s commitment to quality and safety
Introduction
At Saint Francis Health System, quality and safety are a strategic focus area, not an afterthought. In this video, Vice President of Quality Brenda Nance shares how Saint Francis applies health equity as a lens across every quality and safety initiative, shares data transparently through the HHS Perinatal Collaborative and partners with RLDatix to bring equity and outcomes data together in one place. It’s a practical look at how transparency and connected data raise the standard of care.
Watch Brenda Nance explain how Saint Francis Health System applies health equity as a lens across quality and safety, and why transparent data sharing improves care.
Key takeaways from this conversation
- Quality and safety are strategic. They sit alongside access and experience as one of Saint Francis’s core focus areas, shaping how the organization prioritizes and measures improvement.
- Equity is a lens, not a project. Every prioritized initiative for the fiscal year is examined through an equity lens. There is no standalone health equity project.
- Transparent data sharing accelerates learning. Through the HHS Perinatal Collaborative, Saint Francis shares its data openly and applies lessons from peers nationwide, including the Blue Band Project, which helped reduce maternal hypertension rates.
- Equity and outcomes data belong together. With RLDatix, Saint Francis now views safety events alongside demographic breakdowns by race, ethnicity, age and language in one place.
The challenge, and how Saint Francis responds
The challenge
Most healthcare organizations review outcomes data without the demographic context needed to reveal where disparities exist. Equity data and safety data often live in separate systems, making it difficult to see the full picture. And without visibility into what peer organizations are doing, teams miss evidence-based interventions they could adopt.
The approach
Saint Francis embeds equity into the method rather than adding it as an afterthought. Every quality and safety project is analyzed through an equity lens from the start. Through the HHS Perinatal Collaborative, the team shares data transparently and learns from health systems across the country. The Blue Band Project is a direct example: a proven intervention Saint Francis adopted after learning about it through the collaborative.
With RLDatix, equity demographics have been added directly into Risk & Safety , giving the team one place for connected, equity-informed reporting.
Real-world impact and where this applies
| Before |
| Outcomes data reviewed without demographic context |
| Health equity treated as a standalone initiative |
| Limited visibility into peer approaches |
| Blue Band Project not implemented |
| Safety and equity data in separate systems |
| After |
| Equity applied as a lens across every quality and safety project |
| Equity embedded into all prioritized projects for the fiscal year |
| Active participation in the HHS Perinatal Collaborative, learning from health systems nationwide |
| Project implemented, resulting in reduced maternal hypertension rates |
| Equity demographics built into the RLDatix’s Risk & Safety product, available in one place |
"If you’re just looking at the outcomes data alone in isolation, you won’t identify the root cause or focus area of where you need to spend your time and resources to improve your total patient outcome.”
Brenda Nance, Vice President of Quality
Where this applies
- Health systems looking to embed equity into existing quality and safety workflows rather than building a separate program.
- Organizations participating in perinatal or clinical collaboratives and wanting to learn faster from shared data.
- Quality leaders seeking to connect demographic data with safety events in a single view.
- Multi-site systems needing consistent, equity-informed reporting across facilities.
Hello, my name is Brenda Nance. I’m the Vice President of Quality for Saint Francis Health System in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Quality and safety is one of our strategic focus areas at Saint Francis, along with access and experience.
Equity is a lens of how we look at any type of data, whether it be safety data, quality data, patient outcomes data. And so when we have our prioritized projects for the fiscal year, there’s not a project for health equity. Equity is a lens in all of our projects.
We also as an organization were one of the first entities that participated in the Health and Human Services Perinatal Collaborative. And since that time, all of our hospitals that do deliveries have joined that collaborative. That was really instrumental because we share transparently our data within that collaborative. We learn from what others across the nation are doing so that we can apply that work to the patients that we serve.
A simple example of something that we did was the blue band project. That’s a very common project that people had implemented across the nation to reduce the rates of maternal hypertension, especially in our underserved populations. We didn’t know about that. We weren’t doing that. But by sharing our data and being transparent and learning from the others, we were able to implement that project and since then have reduced our maternal hypertension rates.
From an equity lens, you know, and having a partner in RLDatix, we’ve been able to add that real data to that safety module so that now with our safety event reporting, we can also start looking at our outcomes by things like race, ethnicity, age and language. Being able to go to one place to find all of that information has been incredibly meaningful for our organization.
An equity data point belongs on the same scorecard as your outcomes data because if you’re just looking at the outcomes data alone in isolation, you won’t identify the root cause or focus area of where you need to spend your time and resources to improve your total patient outcome.
Frequently asked questions
Brenda Nance is the Vice President of Quality at Saint Francis Health System in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has been with the organization since 2002, starting as a registered nurse. She holds a Doctorate of Nursing Practice from Samford University, is nationally certified in healthcare quality and is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.
Saint Francis Health System is a not-for-profit health system based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has earned both the 15 Top Health Systems and 100 Top Hospitals designations. The organization treats quality and safety as a core strategic focus area alongside access and patient experience.
Rather than creating a standalone health equity initiative, Saint Francis applies equity as a lens across every prioritized project for the fiscal year. Whether the team is analyzing safety events, clinical outcomes or patient experience, demographic data like race, ethnicity, age and language is part of the analysis from the start.
The Health and Human Services Perinatal Collaborative brings together health systems across the country to share data, implement evidence-based interventions and improve maternal and neonatal outcomes. Saint Francis was one of the first organizations to join, and all of its hospitals that do deliveries now participate.
The blue band project is a widely adopted initiative to reduce rates of maternal hypertension, particularly in underserved populations. Saint Francis learned about it through the HHS Perinatal Collaborative and implemented it after seeing success at other health systems. Since adoption, the organization has reduced its maternal hypertension rates.
Through its partnership with RLDatix, Saint Francis has added equity data directly into its safety module. Safety event reporting now includes demographic breakdowns by race, ethnicity, age and language. This gives the team the ability to view outcomes and equity data in one place rather than across separate systems.
