The NPSF Lucian Leape Institute—the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF)’s think tank—recently announced a $1 million grant from Medtronic plc. The grant, to be distributed over three years, will help the institute lead the health care field in the development of strategies to bring lasting improvements to patient safety.
“The NPSF Lucian Leape Institute is composed of the most distinguished leaders in the patient safety field,” says Steve Blazejewski, senior vice president and president of the patient monitoring and recovery business, minimally invasive therapies group, at Medtronic. “We are pleased to help enhance the institute’s work to improve patient care and safety and support the role of the health care workforce in delivering the safest care.”
This is the first unrestricted funding for the NPSF Lucian Leape Institute, whose members will determine which initiatives it will support. Medtronic will be recognized as inaugural funder of the institute.
Since 2010, the NPSF Lucian Leape Institute has collected research and convened multi-stakeholder roundtables to investigate critical concepts for transforming the safety of the health care system. Beginning in 2010, the institute released a series of reports, as well as other publications, addressing each of these areas: transparency in health care; patient and family engagement; restoring joy and meaning in work and ensuring the safety of the health care workforce; care integration; and reform of medical education.
Future work will focus on the issues that intersect each of these concepts, such as the need for improved measures of patient safety metrics, greater patient and family engagement in health care, and greater awareness of patient safety issues among the general public.
“We are extremely pleased that Medtronic has chosen to so generously support the Institute’s work,” says Tejal K. Gandhi, MD, MPH, CPPS, president and CEO of NPSF and of the institute. “This grant will be enormously helpful in ensuring that the Institute can continue its mission of providing the strategic vision for improving patient safety.”