Safety Disparities

In alignment with the Network's mission of working together to eliminate serious harm across all children’s hospitals, SPS recognizes the critical importance of addressing safety disparities as a key component of network improvement efforts.

The SPS Board of Directors named “achieving harm-free, equitable healthcare for every child” as a key aspiration for the Network, and we continue to strategically design interventions to eliminate safety disparities in children. Working to understand safety disparities assists us in understanding drivers of gaps in outcomes and can help us attain further harm reduction.

SPS has a goal to support all network hospitals in developing structures and processes with the initial objective of submitting Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infections (CLABSI) and/or Unplanned Extubations (UE) - Intensive Care Unit (ICU) data stratified by patient race/ethnicity and language. Collecting and analyzing high-quality data coupled with a supportive structure and highly reliable processes are foundational to eliminating disparities. As we continue the journey to understand and address safety disparities, SPS aspires to integrate the measurement, detection, and elimination of safety disparities into all hospital-acquired harm workstreams.