The Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum announced the three winners of the 2018 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards March 12.
The award is named after John M. Eisenberg, MD, former administrator of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Since 2002, the annual awards have recognized healthcare professionals and organizations for their efforts to improve patient safety and care quality.
The awards are separated into three categories: individual achievement, innovation in patient safety and quality on the national level, and innovation in patient safety and quality on a local level.
Here are this year's winners:
- Individual Achievement — Thomas Gallagher, MD. Dr. Gallagher is a professor and associate chair of the department of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and professor in the university's department of bioethics and humanities. Dr. Gallagher is being honored for his efforts to improve transparency in how healthcare providers disclose injury to patients who have been harmed during medical treatment. His contributions include creating and directing the Collaborative for Accountability and Improvement, which implemented communication and resolution programs at healthcare organizations across the U.S.
- Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality at the National Level — Children's Hospitals' Solutions for Patient Safety. The network, which consists of over 130 children’s hospitals in the U.S. and Canada, is being honored for its focus on advancing the culture of safety across its hospitals. The network saves approximately 10,000 children from harm while hospitalized. The network's members share data on 11 types of patient harm, including surgical site infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections, adverse drug events, and pressure injuries and falls.
- Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality at the Local Level — LifePoint Health's National Quality Program. This Brentwood, Tenn.-based program is being honored for its system-wide learning laboratory, which consists of a data-driven program to improve safety culture in its hospitals and decrease hospital-associated patient harm across over 70 facilities in 22 states. Aggregate patient harm decreased 62 percent through these efforts, including 12 months of zero central-line infections at 73 percent of the company’s hospitals from January to December 2017.
The achievements of each award recipient will be featured in the July 2018 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety.