UCI Health earns five-star ranking for commitment to patient safety

First academic medical center to meet Patient Safety Movement Foundation’s evidence-based solutions

The Patient Safety Movement has awarded UCI Health with the Foundation’s first-ever Five-Star Hospital ranking to an academic medical center. UCI Health was recognized for implementing 29 evidence-based Actionable Patient Safety Solutions (APSS) – 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 know that implementing the APSS, as a part of a comprehensive patient safety program, helps hospitals eliminate preventable deaths.  By implementing the APSS, UCI Health has shown an incredible commitment to eliminating the leading causes of preventable patient deaths in hospitals,” said Joe Kiani, founder of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation.

“We are incredibly proud of the leadership and action that UCI Health has taken and hope that other hospitals will be inspired by UCI Health’s bold commitment to action,” Kiani said. Implementing all of the Actionable Patient Safety Solutions is not easy to do, but the right thing to do.  To err is human, but to not put in place processes that can avoid errors from becoming fatal to patients is inhumane.”

Implementing the Patient Safety Movement Foundation’s Actionable Patient Safety Solutions is part of 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 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.

“We are continually finding ways to improve patient safety and clinical outcomes. We have implemented robust strategies in our hospital and are now looking at ways to extend these processes into our outpatient environment,” said Dr. William Wilson, MD, MA, chief medical officer for UCI Health. “In two weeks’ time, we will begin reporting at our daily safety huddles how long it’s been since we had a preventable harm or witnessed someone who didn’t use proper hand hygiene. Whenever there is a breach in our processes, we have to understand that means a patient is at risk of becoming harmed and we cannot allow that.” 

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. 

For more information on UCI Health’s commitment to action or the Patient Safety Movement, please visit patientsafetymovement.org.

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.