At some of the nation’s top hospitals, patient safety and quality leaders are exploring strategies to reduce hospital-acquired infections while testing AI capabilities in healthcare.
In July, US News & World Report named 20 hospitals on its 2024-2025 Best Hospitals Honor Roll. Nearly 5,000 hospitals were evaluated and scored on 15 specialties and 20 procedures and conditions, and the highest-scoring facilities won the award.
Seven leaders from these hospitals and health systems answered the question, "What are your safety priorities for the latter half of 2024?"
Editor's Note: Responses have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Debra Albert, DNP, RN. Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Vice President of Patient Care Services at NYU Langone (New York City): Our nurses, along with the rest of the clinical teams at NYU Langone, play critical roles in maintaining the highest standards for reliability and safety in healthcare. Our dedication to patient safety has been recognized by repeated Magnet designations and top ratings by Leapfrog.
Each day begins with team meetings to review the specific needs and risks of every patient in our care. We are constantly strengthening our communication practices, ensuring clear and complete exchanges between team members and with patients. We're particularly focused on supporting patients who speak languages other than English, making sure they fully understand their care and feel valued in every interaction. Our goal is to provide compassionate, effective care for every patient, every time.
Baruch S. Fertel, MD. Vice President of Quality and Patient Safety at NewYork-Presbyterian (New York City): At NewYork-Presbyterian, we continue to focus on delivering amazing care, safely and reliably, and connecting our objectives to the values of our larger organization: respect, integrity, innovation, teamwork and empathy. We will focus on sustaining our gains in quality metrics, most importantly HAIs, by using an effective improvement framework. Finally, we are committed to continuing our data-driven journey to deliver actionable data that drives performance and improvement.
Andrea Restifo, RN. Associate Executive Director for Quality and Patient Safety at North Shore University Hospital (Manhasset, N.Y.): At North Shore University Hospital, our safety priorities align with the [Joint Commission's] National Patient Safety Goals. We are focused on learning more about preventing harm for all patients. We will continue to concentrate on individualizing care, reducing medical errors, avoiding infections and decreasing 30-day readmissions. This includes getting valuable insights from our patients, families and team members so we can improve patient care processes leading to better patient experiences and outcomes.
Edward Seferian, MD. Vice President of Patient Safety and Quality at The Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore): At The Johns Hopkins Hospital, our safety priorities for the latter half of 2024 focus on three key areas. First, we remain dedicated to enhancing workplace safety and ensuring that our clinicians and staff members continue to have a secure and supportive environment in which to provide the highest quality care. Second, we are committed to sustaining a robust safety culture that encourages the reporting of safety issues, particularly "near miss" events. That includes two-way communication and results shared with front-line staff. And third, we are eager to explore the potential uses of artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to more reliably identify patients who may be at risk for safety events, with an aim to proactively tailor interventions to prevent potentially avoidable harm.
Shawn Tittle, MD. Senior Vice President and System Chief Quality Officer of System Quality and Patient Safety at Houston Methodist: We will always focus on the fundamentals, but our top safety priorities are creating a safer patient experience by enhancing fall prevention measures and reducing hospital-acquired conditions.
Chad VanDenBerg. Chief Quality and Patient Safety Officer at UC San Diego Health: We are proud that our world-class physicians, nurses, pharmacists, therapists and care teams have been recognized by US News & World Report for their excellence. We continue to focus on what matters most to our patients — Don't Hurt Me, Heal Me, and Be Nice to Me. In this regard, we remain steadfast in our priorities.
We are approaching the 25th anniversary of the Institute of Medicine's "To Err is Human" report. As such, it's worth noting that UC San Diego Health is a champion of developing next generation artificial intelligence innovations that will transform our approach to patient safety.
Lisa Yerian, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical and Operational Improvement Officer at Cleveland Clinic: Cleveland Clinic is committed to being the best place for care, anywhere. This means providing the safest, highest quality care with the best outcomes and patient experience, all while ensuring ease of access. As we look toward the remainder of 2024, our safety priorities include enhancing harm reporting, reinforcing high reliability behaviors, and advancing our analytical and improvement capabilities across the health system.