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)

Meetings

The Patient Safety Network meetings are back! Below is the schedule and meeting topics for 2007. Your involvement is welcome. If you would like to plan, present, facilitate or volunteer to be the host organization (provide a room that can accommodate 20-40 people) for one of these meetings please contact Michael Taylor at the Foundation for Health Care Quality.

Friday, November 2, 2007 -- 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM
Pacific Campus, Prov A/B Room on the Main Floor
Roles of the Patient and Family Involvement in Patient Safety
Providence Everett Medical Center
916 Pacific Ave
Everett, WA 98206

Friday, August 3, 2007
Patient Safety Culture Surveys
Group Health Cooperative's Administration and Operations Campus
12400 E Marginal Way S, Tukwila, WA 98168
ASB (South) Building - Room E106

Here is an article and some tools to assist your team with measuring your organization's Patient Safety Climate:

On-line patient safety climate survey: Tool development and lessons learned
Advances in Patient Safety: From Research to Implementation Volumes 4, AHRQ Publication Nos. 050021 (1-4).

Safety Attitudes Questionnaire and Safety Climate Survey
University of Texas, Houston
The Safety Climate Survey: Psychometric and Benchmarking Properties
Technical Report 03-03
J B Sexton and E J Thomas

Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture/Hospital Survey Toolkit
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Friday, April 27, 2007
Hand-Off Communication
Swedish Hospital

Leapfrog Never Events Fact Sheet

Friday, February 2, 2007
National Quality Forum Safe Practices and Patient Safety Awareness Week Planning
Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center
Board Room
4800 Sand Point Way NE

Patient Safety Awareness Week (PSAW) is a national education and awareness-building campaign for improving patient safety at the local level. Hospitals and healthcare organizations across the country are encouraged to plan events to promote patient safety within their own organizations. Educational activities are centered on educating patients on how to become involved in their own health care, as well as working with hospitals to build partnerships with their patient community. Click here for more on facility planning for 2007 PSAW.

National Quality Forum (NQF) Updates Endorsement of Safe Practices for Better Healthcare Adverse healthcare events are a leading cause of death and injury in the United States, even though well-documented methods are available that could prevent the occurrence of such events. In 2003, the National Quality Forum (NQF) endorsed 30 "safe practices" that should be universally utilized in applicable healthcare settings to reduce the risk of harm resulting from processes, systems, or environments of care.

To ensure the practices reflected new evidence and innovation, NQF undertook an effort to update the list of practices, and on 10/16/06 announced endorsement of 3 new practices and 23 practices from the initial list that have materially changed; 4 practices remain unchanged.

Patient Safety Reference from Linda Foss

Website: http://www.usuhs.mil/cerps/teamstepps.html
How to order from AHRQ: http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/teamstepps/

Name of book about story telling is The Story Factor by Annette Simmons 2001, 2006 (updated) Basic Books Publisher.

Contacts

For more information about the Patient Safety Network, or to register for any of these meetings, please contact Cat Ernevad, Jill Langle, Sheila Yates, or Jaleh Shafii.