AHRQ to Sponsor Patient Safety Product Showcase

Media Advisory : September 23, 2004

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) will host an interactive display of over 75 patient safety products, tools, and research findings during its Making the Health Care System Safer: Third Annual Patient Safety Research Conference. Researchers will be on hand to discuss their work and how clinicians, administrators, purchasers, and others can use their findings to make the health care system safer.

Products and tools on display include:

• Discussing Unanticipated Outcomes and Disclosing Medical Errors

  John Banja, M.D., of Emory University's Center for Ethics wrote and directed this video, which presents a discussion of medical error issues by a panel of topic experts and vignettes of how to disclose adverse events to patients and their families.

• PeaceHealth Community-wide Electronic Shared Medication List

  Ronald Stock, M.D., from the Sacred Heart Medical Center Foundation will demonstrate a single medication list and care plan that is electronically and manually shared, updated, and reconciled with each patient and their caregivers, physicians, alternative care practitioners, clinics, hospitals, home health agencies, nursing homes, and others who participate in the care of each patient.

• Georgia Partnership for Health and Accountability Web Site Event Reporting Tool

  Dorothy "Vi" Naylor, M.N., R.N., Executive Vice President, Georgia Hospital Association, will demonstrate an adverse event reporting process that features an anonymous, Web-based tool that supports the goal of non-punitive tracking and trending adverse events that have caused temporary or permanent harm as well as the sharing of successful solutions to decrease the occurrence of adverse events.

• Medication Management in Home Care

  Joyce Menezes, M.D., from New York University designed a CD-ROM for home care nurses to help them review their organization's medication management policies and self-test their knowledge of these policies. This tool is helpful for nurses either at orientation or for staff who want to review organizational policies, especially those policies that are newly implemented. Nurses can recognize commonly occurring medication problems in the home and may effectively address issues involving medication management at home. This product provides information about safe medication practices for nursing staff, which will ultimately lead to better patient outcomes.

• Does Simulation Reduce the Time to Learn Critical Skills?

  John Combes, M.D., from the Hospital and Health System Association of Pennsylvania will showcase this simulator that provides trainees an opportunity to acquire new skills and receive a much broader range of learning experiences, including the treatment of relatively uncommon clinical conditions which are unlikely to be encountered during traditional patient-based training. Clinical simulations like this one can also be used as an assessment tool to objectively evaluate providers' knowledge, procedural skills, and decisionmaking with a focus on patient safety related effects.

Monday, September 27, 2004
7:00 a.m.-7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, September 28, 2004
7:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.

Crystal Gateway Marriott
1700 Jefferson Davis Highway
Arlington, VA, 22202
(Crystal City Metro Station)

The Making the Health Care System Safer: Third Annual Patient Safety Research Conference will be attended by over 600 health care professionals interested in improving the safety of the health care system.

For more information, please contact AHRQ Public Affairs: (301) 427-1241 or (301) 427-1857.

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Internet Citation:

AHRQ to Sponsor Patient Safety Product Showcase. Press Release, September 23, 2004. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/news/press/pr2004/psshowpr.htm

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