Ohio Children’s Hospitals Work to Eliminate Patient Harm, Help Hospitals Across the Nation Follow Their Lead

COLUMBUS, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In Columbus, Ohio, today, Ohio Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety (OCHSPS) will convene a learning session in which Ohio’s eight children’s hospitals will be teaching leaders from 25 children’s hospitals around the country how to make patient safety the top priority and employ strategies from high reliability industries – such as nuclear power and aviation – that achieve high levels of safety in the face of considerable hazards and operational complexity.

“In Ohio, we’ve said ‘we won’t compete when it comes to patient safety in our children’s hospitals,’”

“In Ohio, we’ve said ‘we won’t compete when it comes to patient safety in our children’s hospitals,’” said Michael Fisher, president and CEO, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and chair of OCHSPS. “Our shared goal is zero harm – putting patients and families first by embracing a culture of safety. All 30,000 employees from our institutions around the state – from the front line staff to senior executives – go through a variety of safety training. We start every day with a safety meeting. It’s number one on our list and number one on the list of every children’s hospital in Ohio. That’s why we’re making transformational change here in our state and have been asked to share our experiences, strategies and tactics with children’s hospitals throughout the country.”

Ohio’s eight children’s hospitals will be sharing how they have been able to work together to achieve significant improvements in patient safety and error prevention to date – saving lives and dollars. Efforts in Ohio are now focused on reducing Serious Safety Events (SSEs) across the board, and the collaborating hospitals have already achieved their initial goal of cutting SSEs in half. As part of the overall harm reduction effort, OCHSPS has also developed a pediatric harm index to track ten elements of harm occurring in hospitals across the country.

The 33 hospitals from across the United States participating in today’s learning session are part of the OCHSPS National Children’s Network, which is striving to achieve specific goals by December 31, 2013. Goals include reducing serious harm in participating institutions by 40 percent; reducing readmissions by 20 percent; and reducing serious safety events by 25 percent by focusing on reducing healthcare acquired conditions that include SSIs, ADEs, SSEs and eight others. The network will add an additional 50 children’s hospitals in 2013.

More information about the Ohio Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety is available at www.solutionsforpatientsafety.org.