$50 million investment to improve patient safety in USA

Citation

(2002), "$50 million investment to improve patient safety in USA", International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Vol. 15 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijhcqa.2002.06215aab.005

$50 million investment to improve patient safety in USA

$50 million investment to improve patient safety in USA

In October, HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced the release of $50 million to fund 94 new research grants, contracts and other projects to reduce medical errors and improve patient safety. The initiative represents the Federal Government's largest single investment to address the estimated 44,000 to 98,000 patient deaths related to medical errors each year. The 94 projects now being funded will’be carried out at state agencies, major universities, hospitals, outpatient clinics, nursing homes, physicians' offices, professional societies, and other organisations across the country.

Secretary Thompson said:

Nothing could be more important than making sure patients receive quality care that doesn't cause unintended harm, and our investment in this kind’of research will pay off in terms of improved patient safety for all Americans. These grants will help identify the causes of medical errors and develop effective solutions to strengthen quality of care across the country."

The projects, which are funded by HHS's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), will address key’unanswered questions about how errors occur and provide science-based information on what patients, clinicians, hospital leaders, policymakers and others can do to make the health care system safer. The results of the research will identify improvement strategies that work in hospitals, doctors' offices, nursing homes, and other health care settings across the nation.

The $50 million research initiative is the first phase of a multi-year effort and there are six major categories of awards:

1. 1.

   Supporting demonstration projects to report medical errors data: These activities include 24 projects for $24.7 million to study different methods of collecting data on errors or analysing data that are already collected to identify factors that put patients at risk of medical errors.

2. 2.

   Using computers and information’technology to prevent medical errors: These activities include 22 projects for $5.3 million to develop and test the use of computers and information technology to reduce medical errors, improve patient safety, and improve quality of care.

3. 3.

   Understanding the impact of working conditions on patient safety: These activities include eight projects for $3 million to examine how staffing, fatigue, stress, sleep deprivation, and other factors can lead to errors.

4. 4.

   Developing innovative approaches to improving patient safety: These activities include 23 projects for $8’million to research and develop innovative approaches to improving patient safety at health care facilities and organisations in geographically diverse locations across the country.

5. 5.

   Disseminating research results: These activities include seven projects for $2.4 million to help educate clinicians and others about the results of patient safety research. This work will help develop, demonstrate and evaluate new approaches to improving provider education in order to reduce errors, such as applying new knowledge on patient safety to curricula development, continuing education, simulation models, and other provider training strategies.

6. 6.

   Additional patient safety research initiatives: AHRQ will use the remaining $6.4 million for ten other projects covering other patient safety research activities, including supporting meetings of state and local officials to advance local patient safety initiatives and assessing the feasibility of implementing’a patient safety improvement corps.