Working to reduce medical errors and improve safety for people receiving health care in Washington.

Patient Safety Network

The Coalition sponsors the Patient Safety Network, a group of professionals committed to improving the safety of patients in our healthcare system.

How can the Patient Safety Network help you in your role?

Build collegial relationships within a wide circle of health-care focused settings:
- Health care organizations
- Health plans
- Government agencies
- List-serve of participants
Share organizational experiences:
- Best Practices
- Lessons learned—what's worked/what has not
- Tools and strategies
- Policies
- Educational resources/references
Discuss and Develop approaches for addressing newstandards and regulations:
- JCAHO-National Patient Safety Goals
- LeapFrog/NQF
Create opportunity for open discussion and idea-generation and try out solutions:
- Address barriers
- Set priorities
- Develop workable solutions
- Potentially establish an area wide 'standard of care'
- Identify pilot sites for initiatives
Notify when there are...
- Updates and new regulations/standards/requirements
- Educational offerings

What we are...

Leading Patient Safety in Washington
Sharing best practices to implement in the region
Improving patient outcomes
Advancing implementation of patient safety goals
Collaborating on meeting regulatory requirements
Supporting staff performance
Standardizing measures of compliance
Identifying ways to leverage resources
Improving the depth of patient safety efforts
Collectively assessing available tools and resources to enhance patient safety
Passionate about quality
Focused on patient safety
Transparent
Patient-focused
Working together toward common goals
Partners

What we are not...

Just another meeting
Duplicative with other organizations/ societies (i.e. WA Risk Mgt.)
Just limited to case reviews/RCA
A “Show & Tell” arena
Focused on Risk Management or Quality Improvement
A Political Action Group (we do not define political policy)

Upcoming Meetings

Please join us for our next quarterly gathering on February 5, 2010 from 11:30 am-1:30 pm at Stevens Hospital in Edmonds. The topic for this informal, brown-bag discussion is "maintaining safety of patients and staff when working with psychiatric and/or drug-using patients in the acute care setting."

To register -- RSVPs due by January 29^th -- and/or to be added to the notification list, please contact Miriam Marcus-Smith.

Participant Quotes

Here's what participants are saying about the Patient Safety Network:

"The discussion was comprehensive and educational."

"Helpful to hear what approaches are being utilized to promote/create a culture of safety."

“It will enable me to educate other members of our staff on new patient safety directives.”

“I wear many different 'hats' for my agency (not a hospital) so it keeps me current, plugged-in re: patient safety issues/events.”

“Great opportunity to hear of the great work being done to advance patient safety. This was my first chance to make this meeting - we will be back!”

"Nice to hear examples of what other hospitals are doing."

"I am so happy to hear various real situations and procedures."

"Open, honest discussion…"

Contacts

For more information about the Patient Safety Network, to suggest a topic for an upcoming gathering, or to host a meeting, please contact one of the following: