Solutions for Patient Safety

Solutions for Patient Safety is a unique collaboration among health care providers and the business community with a shared aspiration of making Ohio the safest place in the nation for health care. Founding partners include:

• Cardinal Health Foundation
• Central Ohio Hospital Council
• Ohio Business Roundtable
• Ohio Children’s Hospital Association
• Ohio Hospital Association

Who We Are
Why We Are Joining Together
Building Upon Success
Our Goals and Initiatives 

Who We Are

• Currently, 25 general and children’s hospitals are participating in the partnership’s initiatives.

• The partnership is initially funded by a $1.5 million investment from the Cardinal Health Foundation.

• To be successful, all participants in the delivery and financing of health care must be at the table. For this reason, the partnership welcomes involvement from additional health care providers, patients, quality organizations, policy makers, businesses and other constituents interested in making a difference in the quality of health care in our state.

Why We Are Joining Together

• By joining forces to implement new patient safety efforts, this partnership will improve health care quality and reduce the overall cost of health care in Ohio.

• Patient outcomes matter and dramatically impact the bottom line of health care costs, but improving patient safety benefits all players in the health care system. Payers benefit by lowered costs and improved access to care. Employers benefit from having a healthier workforce. Patients benefit from higher quality care and the reduction of unnecessary injury and suffering. Providers benefit by opening beds for additional patients, improved operational efficiencies and improved financial performance. And, we all benefit by removing unnecessary costs from the health care system.

Building Upon Success

• While Solutions for Patient Safety is a new collaboration, the partnership is building on an established body of work in the areas of patient safety and quality improvement in health care.

• For more than 10 years, statewide and regional efforts to improve quality and patient safety have been underway and yielding substantial results, including the work of the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association’s Quality Improvement Collaborative and the Ohio Hospital Association’s award-winning quality improvement efforts.

• This partnership will take these efforts to a new level by engaging untapped resources and creating opportunities to build quality improvement systems within and across institutions that will make a positive impact on patient care for years to come.

Our Goals and Initiatives

• A key component of improving patient safety is to promote a culture of safety at health care institutions across the state.

  • Providers at every level of care – starting with the upper most levels of management – must embrace patient safety and integrate accountability for lives, dollars and time affected by the partnership’s programs.

  • As part of this effort, partners will develop and deliver training to engage hospital leadership – CEOs and their boards of trustees – in quality and patient safety efforts to further support the efforts currently underway at Ohio’s hospitals.

• Partners will develop sustainable, scientifically-based approaches to reduce health care-associated infections and medication errors. Participating institutions will share information within and across institutions, and then work to replicate best practices and outcomes with providers in Ohio and nationwide.

• Most immediately, the partnership will focus on improving measurement and tracking processes, which will make data collection more complete, allowing us to set accurate benchmarks and begin pursuing our initial goals:

• Initial program goals for participating Central Ohio hospitals:

  • Reduce central line catheter-associated blood borne infections by June 2010.

  • Reduce health care-associated methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections by June 2010.

• Initial program goals for Ohio children’s hospitals:

• Reduce surgical site infections in designated cardiac, neurosurgery and orthopedic procedures by June 2010.

• Eliminate severe harm or death to any child due to medication errors by March 2010, while also working to subsequently eliminate any harm or injury from preventable adverse drug events.

• For more detailed explanations of the program goals, please click here.

• Results will quantify the lives, days and dollars saved through the partnership’s efforts. We anticipate being able to share initial results of our first initiative in fall 2009, with additional reports issued as further achievements are made and new initiatives are identified.