In light of Patient Safety Awareness Week 2015, March 8-14, I would like to share some of the latest articles we’ve written underscoring ways to promote patient safety. In the highly regulated healthcare industry, providing patient safety is more than a trend; it is a legal obligation. Countless reports have indicated that successful patient outcomes derive from effective strategies such as: building strong leadership, encouraging staff engagement and establishing clear organizational goals and values—just to name a few.

The following are four recent articles from the PreCheck Blog that discuss patient safety best practices and trends currently affecting healthcare organizations of all sizes.

4 Ways to Improve Patient Safety: Johns Hopkins Medicine Study

Peter Pronovost led a study that examines the model employed by Johns Hopkins Health System to improve care systems and processes for treating patients who require surgery or suffer from serious ailments. After two years of implementation, the study achieved their goal of 96 percent compliance on six of its seven targeted measures using four effective methods. Read more.

3 Ways Hospitals Can Improve Care from The Joint Commission’s Patient Safety Systems Chapter

A new “Patient Safety Systems” chapter online was released late last year to provide healthcare organizations with a proactive approach to designing or redesigning a patient-centered system that aims to improve quality of care and patient safety. While this chapter doesn’t include new accreditation requirements, it describes how existing requirements can be applied to achieve improved patient safety. Read more.

4 Ways to Promote Safety and Quality Through Healthcare HR Best Practices

Healthcare human resources professionals are continually looking for new and inventive ways to promote safety and improve quality scores at their organization. As the nation shifts toward value-based payment models, employers are applying new methods to reduce overnight stays and avoidable readmissions, streamline discharge transition processes and improve diagnostic procedures. Read more.

5 Ways to Improve Patient Care and Safety

U.S. News announced early last year that it would make changes to the Best Hospitals rankings methodology. The role of patient safety will double while weight assigned to hospital reputation will drop. Additionally, you’ll find alarming statistics on premature deaths associated with preventable harm to patients occurring at healthcare facilities.  Read more.

Advancing patient safety and the quality of care is an important subject matter and should be viewed as an ongoing mission. Like ICD-10 implementation, openly exchanging knowledgeable information, such as effective methods and strategies, helps expand the topic and opens up a dialogue that fosters improvements to healthcare organizations of all sizes. Each facility is unique; therefore, there’s no blanket strategy that successfully works for everyone.

Which of the approaches in the aforementioned articles would you deem as an effective measure at your healthcare organization? Leave a comment below! We’d love to hear how you are improving care at your organization.