Summary: St. Joseph’s Health received the 2024 ECRI Safety Excellence Award for its proactive implementation of the Total Systems Safety Assessment, fostering safety improvements through targeted action plans, culture shifts, and staff engagement.

Key Takeaways:

  • St. Joseph’s Health improved safety through collaborative planning, transparency, and systemic change, setting a new standard in patient-centered care.
  • Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health and Hackensack Meridian Health received honorable mentions for their notable safety initiatives.

ECRI has named St. Joseph’s Health the winner of the 2024 Safety Excellence Award, in recognition of numerous safety initiatives they successfully executed across two facilities in northern New Jersey.

The annual Safety Excellence Award from the ECRI and ISMP Patient Safety Organization (PSO) recognizes outstanding patient safety initiatives and evidence-based strategies that improve safety-related outcomes.

Total Systems Safety Assessment

St. Joseph’s Health aligned executive leaders and frontline staff to proactively complete the ECRI Total Systems Safety Assessment to capture a candid, comprehensive snapshot of the institution’s safety status, identify areas for improvement, fuel targeted action plans, and measure progress over time.

“Our entire team has taken a hands-on approach to patient safety,” said Pam Upadya, MD, patient safety officer and interim vice president, physician services, St. Joseph’s Health. “Our partnership with ECRI and their encouragement for us to undergo the safety assessment has aligned our institution completely with the most recent CMS guidelines for patient safety. We’re thrilled for the recognition of our vast efforts around safety excellence, which represents the heart of what we do.”

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Action Plans and Culture Shift

St. Joseph’s Health created core working groups to address each of the four principles in the Total Systems Safety Assessment: Culture Leadership, and Governance; Workplace Safety; Learning System; and Patient and Family Engagement. Multiple targeted action plans were developed for each category.

Inspired by the TSS assessment results, St. Joseph’s began holding quarterly institutional patient safety symposiums which focus on successful patient safety initiatives that can be celebrated as a learning opportunity throughout the healthcare system.

The action plans included other changes, such as a new Just Culture policy and education, safety improvement education plans, expanding the Patient and Family Advocacy Council, unit-based huddles, safety coaches, and engaging in learning systems and networks.

The safety team also began introducing “safety stories” into all leadership and board meetings to highlight staff’s positive actions related to safety and incident reporting. These efforts helped to shift the culture towards a focus on safety, transparency, communication across expert teams, and overall brought tangible safety actions to the forefront for senior leaders.

Additional Awards and Honorable Mentions

St. Joseph’s Health also won ECRI’s 2024 Healthcare Supply Chain Excellence Award for excellence in overall spend management and adopting best practice solutions into their supply chain processes. St. Joseph’s Health was recognized for their safety award during the ECRI and ISMP PSO Annual Meeting.

“We are proud of the team at St. Joseph’s Health for embracing many of the principles that are foundational for a holistic approach to patient safety, like the Total Systems Safety framework and just culture for the workforce,” said Dheerendra Kommala, MD, ECRI chief medical officer. “Their commitment to involving leadership at all levels has been instrumental in driving impactful change that’s sustainable. This proactive, patient-centered approach sets a new standard that is grounded in transparency and successfully reduces preventable harm.”

Two additional ECRI partners were recognized with honorable mentions in the Safety Excellence Award.

  • Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health won ECRI’s Honorable Mention recognition for their work improving the Root Cause Analysis process for clinical safety events. This work led to faster response and investigation times, enhanced staff emotional wellbeing, and a reduction in safety events.
  • Hackensack Meridian Health won ECRI’s Honorable Mention for improving safety event reporting and quality processes across ten acute care hospitals.