The Joint Commission and National Quality Forum selected Prime Healthcare Services and Kaiser Permanente Northern California as recipients of their John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards in two categories.
This marks the twentieth year for the Eisenberg Awards, which "recognize major achievements by individuals and organizations to improve patient safety and healthcare quality." The awards include three categories: individual achievement, national-level innovation and local-level innovation.
Here are the recipients:
Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare Services was awarded the national award for creating a program to address social determinants of health. The organization saw improvements in hospital readmission rates after implementing the program, which involved a new screening tool, community partnerships and bidirectional communications flow.
Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente's Northern California division received the local award for an initiative called Advance Alert Monitor, which proactively identifies patients with a high risk of mortality or intensive care unit transfer. The program was shown to decrease mortality, with between 550 to 3,020 lives saved over four years.
Hardeep Singh, MD, received the individual achievement award for "his expansive, pioneering career in diagnostic safety and health IT safety." Dr. Singh has a history of successfully translating research into pragmatic tools and strategies to improve impatient safety. He has partnered with institutions including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to create and implement tools to strengthen health IT, including applications to improve diagnostics. Dr. Singh is chief of health policy, quality and informatics at Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center's Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness and Safety in Houston. He is also a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
The Joint Commission and National Quality Forum also presented the Honorary Eisenberg Lifetime Achievement Award to Mark Chassin, MD, former president and CEO of The Joint Commission.
The recipients will be recognized during an awards presentation this summer.