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PA regional collaboration cuts medical errors

Patient Safety Monitor Alert, January 17, 2005

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The Regional Medication Safety Program for Hospitals-launched by the Delaware Valley Healthcare Council and two leading patient-safety organizations in 2001-aims to provide hospitals with tools to reduce errors that harm patients.

A January 6 report compiled from surveys of hospital administrators concluded that the 49 participating hospitals showed a 22% improvement toward meeting the council's goals over the last three years, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The hospitals collaborated on 16 safety goals designed to reduce medication errors by improving processes such as ordering medications and staff reporting of errors and problems.

The program cost $1.4 million, raised by the hospitals and others in order to provide resources and coordinate error-reduction efforts, said Andrew Wigglesworth, president of the healthcare council.

"This is a very important collaborative effort moving the issue in the right direction," said David B. Nash, professor of health policy at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. The safety program provides "a baseline from which to measure improvements and on which hospitals can self-evaluate."

Altogether, the group developed four videos and multiple safe-practices campaign posters and held educational and training seminars.

"To me, the most significant aspect of this initiative is the fact that we have been able to get...area hospitals to work together," said David Schulkin, chief medical officer at Temple University Hospital and a patient safety expert. "After a decade when Philadelphia has really been about competition between hospitals, it really took the issue of safety to get us back on track of collaboration."

To read the Inquirer article, click here.

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