The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has awarded over $8 million in total funding for 15 projects that are designed to help clinicians, facilities, and patients implement evidence-based patient safety practices. The 15 projects funded as part of AHRQ's Partnerships in Implementing Patient Safety initiative will use interventions that are ready to be implemented now and have the potential for both an immediate and a long-term impact.
Many of the projects focus on reducing medication errors, an area known to be in need of patient safety solutions. Other projects will apply interventions to improve communication among members of the health care team caring for a patient, also a well-known source of errors. The interventions are designed to be generalizable to other settings of care.
A key component of these projects is the development of a set of free, publicly available toolkits for health care providers and others. The toolkits will facilitate sharing of lessons learned on how to best implement patient safety practices. For example, toolkits will be developed to help patients keep track of their prescription medicines when they are admitted to or discharged from a hospital.
These grants build on AHRQ's investment in patient safety research over the past 5 years and support the implementation of innovative interventions aimed at reducing medical errors and improving health care for all Americans. As a result of this initiative, providers across the country will have access to practical, proven tools they can implement in their own facilities.
The projects span a wide spectrum of settings—including small rural facilities and large urban hospitals, clinics, and emergency departments—as well as various patient groups, such as pediatric and geriatric patients. Because some of the projects involve health systems that have locations in multiple States, the research projects will include nearly half of the States. To access a complete listing of projects funded through this initiative, go to www.ahrq.gov/qual/pips.htm.
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