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International Patient Safety Movement Foundation honors UCI Health

Chief Medical Officer Dr. William C. Wilson receives humanitarian award

January 24, 2019
UCI Health's Dr. William C. Wilson receives humanitarian award from Patient Safety Movement Foundation.
UCI Health Chief Medical Officer William C. Wilson, MD, MA, center, receives the Steven Moreau Humanitarian Award from Joe Kiani, founder and chairman of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, and Ariana Longley, the foundation's chief operating officer. 

UCI Health has again been recognized for its commitment to patient safety at the 7th annual World Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit, sponsored by the internationally acclaimed Patient Safety Movement Foundation. The Summit, held Jan. 18-20 in Huntington Beach, focused on the leading causes of preventable patient deaths in hospitals and innovative programs and best practices that can saves lives. 

The Summit featured a keynote address by President Bill Clinton, educational sessions by patient safety experts such as Peter Pronovost, MD, and Michael A.E. Ramsay, MD, FRCA. In addition, healthcare policy and technology sessions were led by healthcare luminaries, including past Surgeon General Richard Carmona, MD; Anders Wold, president and CEO, GE Healthcare Clinical Care Solutions; Jan Kimpen, MD, CMO, Philips; and Omar Ishrak, PhD, chairman and CEO, Medtronic, among many others.

“For seven years, we have worked with some of the best patient safety experts around the world to create easy to implement solutions to address the top medical errors that are causing the majority of preventable harm and death in our hospitals,” said Joe Kiani, founder and chairman of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation.  

He urged every hospital to implement each of the Foundation’s Actionable Patient Safety Solutions (APSS). “To err is human but to not put the proper patient safety processes in place is inhumane,” Kiani said.

Kiani honored UCI Health Chief Medical Officer William C. Wilson, MD, MA, with the Steven Moreau Humanitarian Award, presented annually to a hospital administrator whose zeal for improving patient safety in their hospital is clearly prominent.  In November, UCI Health received the Foundation’s first-ever Five-Star Hospital ranking to an academic medical center and one of only four around the world. 

“We are on a journey to become a highly reliable organization in all segments of patient care,” Dr. Wilson said during his address at the Summit. “Part of the safety architecture at UCI Health that propelled us to achieve this Five-Star status has been our mission to fully engage our clinical staff in the culture of safety.” 

Under Dr. Wilson’s leadership, UCI Health has implemented the 29 evidence-based Actionable Patient Safety Solutions– processes designed to help hospitals eliminate the leading causes of preventable patient deaths in hospitals.  It’s estimated that more than 250,000 people die in U.S. hospitals each year from preventable harm – making it the third leading cause of death in the United States.

“We can’t hope for zero preventable harm and deaths, we need to plan for it and put the proper patient safety processes in place,” Kiani said during the Summit. “Patient safety experts from around the world have done the heavy lifting and created proven solutions. These APSS are available to every hospital and thousands have implemented one or two APSS but sadly, only four hospitals have implemented all of them. We hope to see every hospital implement every APSS in 2019.”

Implementing the Patient Safety Movement Foundation’s Actionable Patient Safety Solutions is a key element in UCI Health’s plan to become a high-reliability organization and become recognized in the top 10 percent for all hospital ranking systems. At the heart of this plan, developed by UCI Health’s CMO, Dr. Wilson, is UCI Health’s commitment to creating a culture of safety, which includes:

  • TeamSTEPPS program: An evidence-based set of teamwork tools developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality aimed at optimizing patient outcomes by improving communication and teamwork skills among health care professionals.
  • A Just and Accountable Culture: A transparent culture which ensures that staff can report issues without fear of retribution.
  • Patient Safety and Quality Crosswalk: The “Crosswalk” provides a visual illustration of the alignment between hospital accreditation standards and the CMS Conditions of Participation for Hospitals in Medicare, and all of the publicly reported hospital ranking systems.
  • Patient Safety Movement Foundation: A partnership with a like-minded group in the goal of ZERO preventable patient deaths by 2020.

Since implementing the Actionable Patient Safety Solutions as well as their own innovative patient safety improvements, UCI Health has achieved some remarkable results, including:

  • Reducing the number of healthcare-associated infections.
  • Improving hand-off communication between multiple care teams involved in treating patients.
  • Early detection and treatment of sepsis.
  • Reducing patient exposure to drug-resistant organisms, such as VRE.

More than 4,600 hospitals in 44 countries have implemented the free, evidence-based Actionable Patient Safety Solutions the Patient Safety Movement has produced in concert with leading medical experts.  During the Summit, Kiani announced that 90,146 lives were saved in 2018, thanks to these efforts. A total of 273,077 lives have been saved since the anniversary of the first summit in 2013. 

About The Patient Safety Movement Foundation

More than 250,000 people die every year in U.S. hospitals and 4.8 million worldwide in ways that could have been prevented. The Patient Safety Movement Foundation is a global non-profit which creates free tools for patients and hospitals. The Patient Safety Movement Foundation was established through the support of the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation, and Competition in Healthcare to reduce that number of preventable deaths to ZERO. Improving patient safety will require a collaborative effort from all stakeholders, including patients, healthcare providers, medical technology companies, government, employers, and private payers. The Patient Safety Movement Foundation works with all stakeholders to address the problems with actionable solutions for patient safety. The Foundation also convenes the World Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit. The Summit brings together some of the world’s best minds for thought-provoking discussions and new ideas to challenge the status quo. By presenting specific, high-impact solutions to meet patient safety challenges, called Actionable Patient Safety Solutions, encouraging medical technology companies to share the data their products are purchased for, and asking hospitals to make commitments to implement Actionable Patient Safety Solutions, the Patient Safety Movement Foundation is working toward ZERO preventable deaths. Visit patientsafetymovement.org.

UCI Health comprises the clinical enterprise of the University of California, Irvine. Patients can access UCI Health at primary and specialty care offices across Orange County and at its main campus, UCI Medical Center in Orange, California. The 417-bed acute care hospital provides tertiary and quaternary care, ambulatory and specialty medical clinics, and behavioral health and rehabilitation services. UCI Medical Center features Orange County’s only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, high-risk perinatal/neonatal program and American College of Surgeons-verified Level I adult and Level II pediatric trauma center and regional burn center. UCI Health serves a region of nearly 4 million people in Orange County, western Riverside County and southeast Los Angeles County. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.