Summaries of Independent Scientist (K) Awards

Weingart, Saul

Institution: Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston
Grant Title: Partnering with Patients to Find Adverse Events
Grant Number: K08 HS011644
Duration: 5 years (2001-2006)
Total Award: $549,900

Project Description: This project has three main goals:

1. To assess whether hospitalized patients and their families can identify adverse events and medical errors, to characterize the epidemiology of patient-reported events and errors, and to compare patient-reported events with the results of other methods.
2. To assess whether ambulatory patients can identify adverse drug events (ADEs) and medication errors in response to automatic electronic queries, to characterize the epidemiology of patient-reported ADEs and medication errors, and to understand whether patient ADE reporting results in timely and appropriate responses by primary care physicians.
3. To examine whether hospital performance on a consumer survey of quality health care correlates with surgical complication rates.

Career Goals: Dr. Weingart intends to become an independent investigator, capable of developing and testing interventions and programs to improve patient safety. He aspires to become an expert in the relationship between service quality and medical error, understanding in a methodologically rigorous fashion how patients can help clinicians to prevent iatrogenic injuries, improve clinical outcomes, and enhance patients' own health care experience.

Progress to Date: Data collection and analysis was completed and an oral abstract of the findings was presented at the Society of General Internal Medicine annual meeting.  Several publications have resulted.

Future Plans: Data collection will continue and will be analyzed and presented.

Highlights and Specific Accomplishments:

• Vice President for Patient Safety and Director of the Center for Patient Safety, Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
• Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
• Associate Physician, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
• Recipient of the Price Waterhouse Cooper Lectureship, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, 2004.
• Member of the Society of General Medicine.

K-Generated Publications:

• Weingart SN, Toth M, Sands DZ, et al. Physicians' decision to override computerized drug alerts in primary care. Archives of Internal Medicine 2003;163:2625-31.
• Weingart SN, Seeing error through new lenses [editorial]. Journal of General Internal Medicine 2003;18:675-6.
• Weingart SN, Iezzoni LI. Looking for medical injuries where the light is bright [editorial]. JAMA 2003;290:1917-9.
• Weingart SN, Farbstein K, Davis RB, Phillips RS. Examining the safety culture: a multi-hospital survey. Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety 2004;30:125-32.

AHRQ Research Portfolio: Quality and Patient Safety; Pharmaceutical Outcomes; Training.
AHRQ Goals: Safety and Quality

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