Improved Patient Safety

State Action Steps

During the workshop, the State teams were asked to identify a set of concrete patient safety-related "action steps" that they intend to pursue on their return home. Among the specific actions that the different teams suggested were the following:

• Work with the State legislature to increase their understanding of the issues and challenges that need to be considered in developing a patient safety agenda for the State.
• Expand coalition membership to include new stakeholders such as consumers, the media, legislators, etc.
• Develop university curricula to include patient safety, conduct leadership training in workshops and conferences, and develop and implement public education programs.
• Incorporate patient safety design principles into the Certificate of Need process and building code requirements and develop and implement architectural ratings and assessments.
• Finding support and resources:
  • Conduct a readiness assessment of the State patient safety program, develop a checklist of possible areas of support, and create matches according to the state of readiness.
  • Establish partnerships and collaborations with Federal, national, and State patient safety organizations and coalitions to push the agenda forward.
• Improve data collection, analysis and reporting:
  • Analyze existing databases for new information on ways to improve patient safety.
  • Standardize definitions.
  • Bring practitioners into the analysis to gain buy-in and improve credibility.
  • Enact reporting requirements that include root cause analysis.
  • Provide feedback to hospitals on their Patient Safety Indicator reports.
• Build a culture of patient safety:
  • Engage hospital CEOs and physician leadership.
  • Involve consumers in the patient safety process.
  • Field and analyze survey instruments that measure providers' attitudes on patient safety and the safety climate.
• Design and implement initiatives to address the issues as needed.

Current as of February 2003

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Internet Citation:

Improved Patient Safety: Sharing Issues, Successes, and Challenges Across States. Workshop Brief, User Liaison Program. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/news/ulp/improvpts/ulpimpts.htm

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