Patient Safety Movement’s 2018 Midyear Planning Meeting addresses progress being made to save lives in hospital settings
More than a hundred internationally recognized medical experts exchange ideas on prevention of medical errors
September 18, 2018
UCI Health, recognized for recent efforts to strengthen the safety culture in hospitals, and commit to zero preventable deaths by 2020 (0X2020), co-hosted the Patient Safety Movement’s 2018 Midyear Planning Meeting at the UCI campus on Monday, Sept. 17, 2018.
“We are a little over a year from 0X2020. While there are other challenges we need to address, we believe we have found the main causes of preventable harm where we need to focus,” said Joe Kiani, chairman and founder of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation. “We are not changing our goal. ZERO by 2020 is still possible, but we need everyone’s help. To not put processes in place to eliminate preventable death is unconscionable.”
UCI Health Chief Medical Officer William C. Wilson, MD, MA, provided the keynote address at Monday’s meeting of more than 100 leading medical experts, policymakers, and patient advocates from eight countries and the United States. In his well-received address, Wilson detailed UCI Health’s work to become the first academic medical center to implement all 30 evidence-based Actionable Patient Safety Solutions (APSS), and his team’s journey to become a high-reliability organization that is recognized in the top 10 percent for all hospital ranking systems.
“A patient who enters the hospital without an injurious condition, should never experience one, or leave having received any harm. If they come in without a pressure injury, they should not leave with one. If they come in without an infection; they should not leave with one or become infected in the hospital,” Wilson said. “There’s no reason that we should not have 100 percent safe hospitals.”
The UCI Health efforts to reduce medical errors is reflected in its commitment to the Patient Safety Movement’s APSS plan and in quality measures such as eight consecutive ‘A’ grades earned in The Leapfrog Group’s Hospital Safety Scorecard.
The full-day working meeting examined and discussed the six leading causes of preventable patient deaths in hospitals, including:
- Healthcare-associated infections
- Medication errors
- Early detection and treatment of sepsis
- Hand-off communications
- Failure to rescue: Monitoring opioid-induced respiratory depression
- Venous thromboembolism (VTE)
Need for aligned incentives in healthcare
Joining the meeting from Washington, D.C., the Honorable Todd Young, United States Senator for Indiana, led a discussion on the need for aligned incentives in healthcare.
“I want to thank the Patient Safety Movement Foundation for leading the charge to make our healthcare system a safer place for patients,” said U.S. Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.). “One preventable death is one too many, and our healthcare system should be doing more to make patient safety a priority. I look forward to introducing legislation that will ensure hospitals are using proven best practices to prevent unintended outcomes and reduce preventable deaths.”
Experts express need for patient safety curriculum in schools
The Midyear Planning Meeting also included a presentation on the development of a patient safety curriculum for all healthcare professionals.
Peter Pronovost, MD, internationally recognized patient safety expert from Johns Hopkins Hospital provided insights on avoiding hospital acquired infections. Pronovost expressed pleasure that the UCI Health Team has distinguished itself by markedly decreasing central line associated blood stream infections, and has adopted so many robust safety measures.
Steven Scheinman, MD, president and dean, Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, updated the group on their progress to build a patient safety curriculum in healthcare, a practice that the World Health Organization has recommended since 2009. “We recognize that one of the most important elements in training is the role modeling that occurs in the work environment. The culture of safety for ZERO errors does not exist yet,” said Scheinman.
The Midyear Planning Meeting concluded with breakout sessions on the six leading causes of preventable patient deaths in hospitals. The meeting also had sessions focused on bringing in new areas for actionable solutions that will be further discussed at the Foundation’s also World Patient Safety, Science and Technology Summit, which will convene in January, 2019.
About Patient Safety Movement Foundation: More than 200,000 U.S. patients and three million worldwide die each year from preventable causes. The Patient Safety Movement Foundation (PSMF) 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 by 2020 (0X2020). Improving patient safety requires a collaborative effort from all stakeholders, including patients, healthcare providers, medical technology companies, government, employers, and private payers. The PSMF works with all stakeholders to address problems with actionable solutions. By presenting specific, high-impact solutions to meet patient safety challenges, called Actionable Patient Safety Solutions. Visit http://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, UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange, Calif. The 417-bed acute care hospital provides tertiary and quaternary care, ambulatory and specialty medical clinics, and behavioral health and rehabilitation services. U.S. News & World Report has listed it among America’s Best Hospitals for 18 consecutive years. UC Irvine 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. U.S. News & World Report has listed it among America’s Best Hospitals for 18 consecutive years and it is the primary teaching hospital for the UCI School of Medicine. UCI Health serves a region of nearly 4 million people in Orange County, western Riverside County and southeast Los Angeles County. Follow us onFacebookand Twitter.
