Shining the Spotlight on Patient Safety
This week, health care organizations and patient groups across the country are engaging in activities for Patient Safety Awareness Week, under the banner of United for Patient Safety. This is the week where we recognize all the progress hospitals and health systems have made to keep patients, but we also know there is more work to be done.
A major way hospitals and health systems continue on the improvement path is through the second-generation of the Hospital Engagement Network, or HEN 2.0. Through the AHA’s Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET), more than 1,500 hospitals and 34 state and local hospital association are exchanging best practices and working collectively to improve quality and patient safety.
One tool available through the HEN 2.0 project are change packages and checklists, which provide hospitals with “tests of change” and evidence-based best practices on the patient safety topics addressed through the HEN 2.0 program. They are designed as a guide for hospitals to get ideas and quickly implement change around the areas that need to be addressed in their patient safety efforts and to make those efforts sustainable.
The change packages have been updated to include the most recent literature for the topic around best practices, streamlined driver diagrams and illustrations and include the top 10 check lists, which are a list of high priority interventions for hospitals to implement to improve performance in each of the focus areas.
Updated 2016 change packages and checklists currently available include those for Pressure Ulcers; Sepsis; Falls; Readmissions; Clostridium difficile Infection, or CDI; Airway Safety; and Central-Line Associated Blood Stream Infections (CLABSI). Additional topic updates will be released soon and are available for download by all hospitals and health systems at the HEN 2.0 website.
For inspiration from hospitals and health systems who have already made great strides, check out our Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence case study library featuring more than 100 examples of quality and patient safety efforts and the impact they have had.