Award from JCAHO and National Quality Forum cites Culture of Safety
Norfolk, VA – September 23, 2005 – Sentara’s Culture of Safety initiative has been awarded the 2005 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality award from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and the National Quality Forum. Sentara received the award for ‘Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality at a Local or Organizational Level.'
“Sentara Healthcare is an example of what is right with health care in the United States,” said Kenneth W. Kizer, M.D., M.P.H., president and CEO of the National Quality Forum. “Their commitment to improving the quality and safety of American health care is to be applauded.”
Culture of Safety reduces errors, injuries
Sentara’s Culture of Safety focuses on error and injury reduction through simplified rules of behavior for everyone working in the environment of care, from physicians and nurses to dietary and housekeeping staff. The program is focused on Behavior Based Expectations (BBEs) for all staff and department-specific ‘Red Rules’ for safety that govern every activity from patient care to facilities maintenance.
“We’re early in the journey, but we’re seeing results,” says Gary Yates, M.D., chief medical officer for Sentara Healthcare. “Between our dedicated people who embraced this initiative and investment in safety technologies like eICU and enhanced pharmacy software, we are reducing medication errors, hospital-acquired infections and falls with injuries. Root causes of events are quickly corrected through aggressive, state-of-the-art cause analysis approaches.
“We still have a long way to go,” Yates continues, “but we’ve accelerated our pace of improvement by making patient safety a systematic discipline at every site of care in our system.”
“We commend Sentara Healthcare for measurably advancing patient safety,” said Dennis O’Leary, M.D., president of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. “They have developed revolutionary solutions that will clearly help make health care safer.”
The John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award, launched in 2002, is named for the late John M. Eisenberg, M.D., one of the founding leaders of the National Quality Forum and a passionate advocate for patient safety and health care quality.
Eisenberg Award is second national recognition for Culture of Safety
Sentara’s Culture of Safety initiative has also been recognized by the American Hospital Association, which awarded Sentara Norfolk General Hospital its Quest for Quality prize in 2004.
Sentara looked outside the health care field to see safety in a new light. With help from Performance Improvement International, a firm expert in improving human performance in complex systems and the Greeley Company, Sentara Norfolk General Hospital incorporated successful safety principles from the nuclear power industry, the airlines, even naval aviation.
Since then, the safety principles incubated at Sentara Norfolk General have been instituted throughout Sentara’s integrated health care system of hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and physician practices.