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circular logo with department of defense patient safety program written around the perimeter and a pentagon shaped image in the center with the medical caduceus over a medical cross symbol 
Patient Safety Awareness Week is March 12-18, 2017! Check out our PSAW page for details on what is happening this week. Join one our webinar series, participate in our Facebook daily quiz game, subscribe to get daily Patient Safety Tip e-mails, and more!

Your DoD Patient Safety Program (PSP) is a complete program with the goal of creating a culture of patient safety and quality within the Military Health System (MHS). We encourage a systems approach to creating a safer patient environment; engaging MHS leadership; promoting collaboration across all three services; and fostering trust, transparency, teamwork, and communication.

Our Mission is to promote a culture of safety to end preventable patient harm by engaging, educating and equipping patient-care teams to put evidenced-based safe practices in place across the organization.

Our Vision is to support the military mission by building organizational commitment and capacity to implement and sustain a culture of safety to protect the health of the patients in our care.

We support the military mission by encouraging a culture of safety to protect the health of patients in our care.

  • Leadership Engagement: Leaders are the champions of change. We offer solutions to engage, educate and equip the entire patient care team to be champions for patient safety and institutionalize evidenced-based safe practices.
  • Teamwork and Awareness: Sharing information is the key to ensuring all DoD patient care teams have one vision for patient safety. We offer solutions that help teams continuously learn and develop skills to reduce risk and provide high quality care to patients.
  • Alignment and Partnership: To reach a systems approach to improving patient safety, we partner and collaborate with leaders in patient safety that align with our mission including the MHS Quadruple Aim, the High Reliability Organization (HRO) Task Force, the Partnership for Patients and the National Quality Forum’s Safe Practices.

Questions? Contact our staff via email.

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Showing results 1 - 15 Page 1 of 7

Joint Patient Safety Reporting

Fact Sheet
2/10/2017

Joint Patient Safety Reporting (JPSR) is a web-based application that integrates the Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Veterans Affairs Healthcare Administration (VHA) patient safety reporting organizations to create a joint global application.

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Technology | Patient Safety

Hospital goes low, high tech to ensure patient safety

Article
1/19/2017
Evans Army Community Hospital operating room nurse Regina Andrews performs a diagnostic test on the RFID wand. The wand is used to locate surgical sponges embedded with an RFID chip. (U.S. Army photo by Jeff Troth)

To ensure the count of medical sponges is correct in its operating rooms, Evans Army Community Hospital has started using radio-frequency ID sponges

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Patient Safety | Military Hospitals and Clinics | Multi-Service Markets | Quality and Safety of Health Care | Innovation | Technology

Patient Safety In Action: The Value of Partnership, Continued Learning

Article
1/3/2017
Picture of unknown person sitting at computer and taking notes.

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Patient Safety | eBulletin

DoD PSP Treasure Chest: January Edition

Article
1/3/2017
Image of the DoD Patient Safety Program (PSP) logo.

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Patient Safety | eBulletin | Products & Services

Feature: Resolving Conflict and Professional Conduct

Article
1/3/2017
Picture of four health care providers performing surgery.

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Patient Safety | eBulletin | Products & Services

A decade of progress in Women’s health, cancer research

Article
10/26/2016
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Denise Thigpen, director, Breast Imaging Center at the Murtha Cancer Center at Walter Reed Bethesda, reads two mammograms of a patient. (Courtesy photo)

New discoveries at the Murtha Cancer Center have researchers encouraged about Women’s cancer research

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Women's Health | Medical Research and Development | Patient Safety

Hospital's sterile-processing techs are 'Gladiators' of patient safety

Article
9/14/2016
Army Staff Sgt. Oscar Domino (left), operating room technician, hands a sterile pack to Army Maj. Jerry Rivera-Santiago, sterile processing's officer in charge. Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center's Sterile Processing Department assembles and packs more than 400 surgical units monthly. (U.S. Army photo by Gloria Montgomery)

Sterile-processing medical technicians are the multipliers of hospital safety who clean, disinfect and sterilize the hospital and dental clinic's surgical tools

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Health Readiness | Military Hospitals and Clinics | Quality and Safety of Health Care | Patient Safety

2016 DoD PSP Awards Application Guidance

Technical Document
8/5/2016

This document provides guidelines for all interested parties who would like to submit an application package for the 2016 Advancement toward High Reliability in Healthcare Awards Program. The awards program recognizes those who have shown initiative and commitment to the development of systems and processes that will lead the MHS toward a better,...

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Awards Program | Patient Safety | eBulletin | Products & Services

DoD PSP Treasure Chest: August Edition

Article
8/1/2016
Ensign Joshua Mondloch, a nurse assigned to Naval Medical Center San Diego, takes notes in the cardiology in-patient ward. More than 1,000 active duty and civilian nurses provide patient care throughout the medical center. (Photo by Mass Communication Specialist Second Class John O’Neill Herrera)

Welcome to the August edition of the DoD PSP Treasure Chest! Each and every month, we will be sharing resources to help you execute your day-to-day patient safety activities easily and effectively. Please visit us often and get access to tools and information developed with you, our committed MHS patient safety champions, in mind! This month we...

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HRO Corner: The Patient Safety Culture Survey Resource Guide – An Overview

Article
8/1/2016
Soldiers from the 399th Combat Support Hospital, 804th Medical Brigade, 3d Medical Command (Deployment Support) watch video footage of their performance during an exercise held April 2, 2016 at the Mayo Clinic Multidisciplinary Simulation Center in Rochester, Minnesota. The unit's every move was recorded at the facility, which allowed them to review and improve their performance throughout the course of the exercise. During the exercise, the unit, which is based out of Fort Devens, Massachusetts, practiced the Team Strategies and Tools for Enhanced Performance and Patient Safety, or TeamSTEPPS, model of patient care. TeamSTEPPS is a framework implemented by the Department of Defense to optimize performance of military medical teams and reduce communication errors that can result in improper patient care. (Photo by: Staff Sgt. Andrea Merritt)

The DoD is on a journey to transform the Military Health System (MHS) into a high reliability organization (HRO) to ensure safe, reliable care for all of its patients and their families. This transformative shift is one that requires a laser-sharp focus by every one of us – leadership and frontline staff – to identify high-risk situations before they...

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Patient Safety in Action: The I’M SAFE TeamSTEPPS® Checklist – An Exercise in Openness and Transparency with your Team

Article
8/1/2016
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (Apr. 14, 2016) -- During a General Quarters training exercise, Sailors assigned to Pre-Commissioning Unit Gerald R. Ford's (CVN 78) medical response team, simulates care and treatment for common injuries. This ship-wide general quarters drill focused on damage control and emergency responses and is a significant step in certifying the crew as they train to fight and take delivery of the ship.(U.S. Navy photo taken by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Matthew R. Fairchild/Released)

The connection between transparency and high reliability is one that touches many aspects of what we do as MHS patient safety professionals. We strive to be transparent in the way we share information with our patients – working with them as partners in their care and informing them of what we do openly and visibly. We are also transparent about our...

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Patient Safety | eBulletin | Patient Safety Awareness Week | Products & Services | Patient Safety Event Reporting | Patient Safety & Quality Academic Collaborative | Awards Program

MHS Patient Safety Data Snapshot

Article
8/1/2016
Image of the DoD Patient Safety Program (PSP) logo.

The new MHS Patient Safety Data Snapshot is a monthly compilation of two types of patient safety data 1) Sentinel Event (SE) notifications submitted to the Patient Safety Analysis Center (PSAC); 2) Anonymous, voluntarily reported patient safety events via the web-based incident reporting system known as PSR.

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Patient Safety | eBulletin | Products & Services | Patient Safety Event Reporting | Patient Safety & Quality Academic Collaborative | Awards Program | Culture Survey

MHS Patient Safety Spotlight

Article
8/1/2016
Image of the DoD Patient Safety Program (PSP) logo.

The MHS Patient Safety Spotlight is a new resource designed to highlight best practices and interesting initiatives that come from the field and are worthy of being shared across the enterprise. This resource features data-driven examples of improvement and case studies that tackle specific problems with specific solutions.

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Patient Safety | eBulletin | Patient Safety Awareness Week | Products & Services | Patient Safety Event Reporting | Patient Safety & Quality Academic Collaborative | Awards Program | Culture Survey

Feature: Transparency, High Reliability and Patient Safety

Article
8/1/2016
Senior Airman Wesley Hong, 60th Medical Diagnostics and Therapeutics Squadron picture archiving communication system administrator, reviews patient imagery May 25, 2016, at David Grant USAF Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base, Calif. Hong works in the hospital's PACS department, which is the largest in the U.S. Air Force. The department is responsible for ensuring the accuracy of health records for medical facilities at 19 bases, including clinics in Afghanistan. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. James Hodgman)

On any given day, Military Health System (MHS) patient safety professionals are working tirelessly to ensure they provide the highest quality of care to their patients. Driven by a high level of dedication, MHS patient safety professionals know that our patients are the single most important part of our mission and we must serve our patients in an...

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Patient Safety | eBulletin | Patient Safety Awareness Week | Products & Services | Patient Safety Event Reporting | Patient Safety & Quality Academic Collaborative | Awards Program

HRO Corner: Measuring the Effectiveness of the TeamSTEPPS® Teamwork Perceptions Questionnaire (T-TPQ) – U.S. Army Medical Command Implementation

Article
7/1/2016
The DoD PSP team commends the MEDCOM for its implementation of TeamSTEPPS and the T-TPQ.  It is this type of well-thought out and carefully planned application of TeamSTEPPS that will continue to move MHS forward and towards becoming a high performing, highly reliable health care system.

Offering various ready-to-use tools, materials and resources, TeamSTEPPS can be tailored to address the specific needs of an organization to seamlessly incorporate its principles into all areas of a health care system. In fact, it is only by fully integrating the tools that TeamSTEPPS offers into our day-to-day activities that Military Health System ...

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