According to the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, more than 200,000 patients in US hospitals die annually from preventable deaths. The Foundation and the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare plan to change that by partnering on the second Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit to eradicate preventable deaths by 2020.
The first Patient Safety Summit was held in January 2013 to tackle issues including failure to rescue, medication errors, blood transfusion overuse, intravascular catheter-related infections, suboptimal neonatal oxygen targeting, and failure to detect critical congenital heart disease. Former president Bill Clinton headlined the event, which succeeded in obtaining pledges from nine technology companies to share their data across non-proprietary devices to improve patient safety.
According to The Joint Commission, building on these accomplishments can give caregivers access to complete data that will improve clinical decisions. The next Summit is scheduled for January 11-13, 2014, and will address three major areas: maximizing the effectiveness of hand-off communications, minimizing health care acquired infections, and cultivating a culture of safety.
Dr Mark R. Chassin, president and CEO of The Joint Commission and Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare, says, “We need to do something different to achieve these challenging goals and the Patient Safety Movement Foundation is about taking action, rather than just talking about change. We share the passion and commitment it will take to eliminate preventable patient deaths by 2020.”
For more information, visit the Patient Safety Movement Foundation and the Center for Transforming Healthcare.
