Johns Hopkins to launch patient safety institute

Johns Hopkins is launching The Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, a patient safety institute which will focus on preventing infections, misdiagnoses, improper treatments and other errors, according to the Baltimore Sun.

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Johns Hopkins program can help improve safety culture at hospitals

All hospitals can adopt recommendations from Johns Hopkins University in order to improve the safety culture, according to a study in Quality and Safety in Healthcare.

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The Joint Commission participates in P5S, public-private alliance to improve patient safety

A public-private alliance known as the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) is noted as having greatly improved aviation safety. A similar alliance among health care stakeholders could reduce medication and device errors and wrong-site surgeries, renowned patient safety expert Peter Pronovost and coauthors say in an article published April 7 on the Health Affairs Web site (subscription required). Pronovost is a professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

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HRET awarded federal project to reduce infections

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) has awarded a nearly $3 million, three-year contract to the Health Research and Education Trust (HRET)—an American Hospital Association (AHA) affiliate—to help reduce central line-associated bloodstream infections in hospital ICUs. HRET is partnering with the Johns Hopkins University Quality and Safety Research Group and the Michigan Health & Hospital Association Keystone Center for Patient Safety and Quality to help 10 yet-to-be-chosen hospitals in each of 10 states put the program into practice. They also plan to develop an educational toolkit and other resources to help hospitals nationwide reduce central-line associated blood stream infections.

HRET Interim President John Combes, M.D., said the project “has great potential to significantly reduce infections on a national level.” The contract was awarded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Click here for the AHRQ news release .

(SOURCE: AHA News Now, http://ahanews.com , October, 1, 2008).