Safe Health Care - What Missouri Providers are Doing for You

Jefferson City, MO (PRWEB) April 14, 2011

April is Patient Safety Awareness Month in Missouri. The Missouri Center for Patient Safety (MOCPS) wants Missourians to know its continued statewide efforts, in collaboration with Missouri health care providers, are improving health care safety.

MOCPS leads programs that help health care providers improve the safety of health care delivery. An equally important objective is empowering patients and families with the information they need to take a lead role in obtaining safe care. See patient resources - http://tinyurl.com/3o7rfsa

With ongoing efforts to learn about and prevent medical mistakes, MOCPS, a federally designated Patient Safety Organization (PSO), is part of a national program which will have reduced preventable adverse events by 3% within the first five years of operations of PSOs, according to estimates from the federal Department of Health and Human Services, saving $435 million in national health care costs.

• As a PSO for more than 185 health care providers, MOCPS provides a culture that both encourages reporting of medical mistakes, and supports sharing, learning and prevention efforts that lead to error reduction and cost savings in Missouri.
• As a PSO, MOCPS is also working with Missouri’s ambulance services to improve the quality and safety of emergency medical care, a model unique in the nation. Watch the video - http://tinyurl.com/43atdz5

MOCPS leads efforts to establish and support an organizational culture to continually improve safety with the following programs:

• Comprehensive Unit-based Safety Program (CUSP) - Within the national CUSP project, the Center’s Basics of CUSP assessed the culture and improved teamwork and communication in 73 units at 42 hospitals. http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/cusp.htm
• “Just Culture” Initiatives - collaborative with 67 organizations, training more than 500 individuals to establish a culture that encourages and supports reporting and investigation of medical errors - with training now expanding to Missouri’s ambulance service professionals. Watch the video - http://tinyurl.com/43atdz5
• Banding Together – for patient safety – standardizing the use of colored wristbands for high risk conditions across more than 100 health care settings.    

MOCPS also led efforts to reduce health care acquired infections (HAIs) through a regional collaborative with 15 hospitals in the Metropolitan Kansas City and Northwest Missouri regions. The collaborative led to a 32% reduction in the rate of central line blood stream infections (CLABSI’s); work that translates into one saved life, 17 CLABSIs prevented, and a $1.4 million savings in health care costs.    http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/onthecusprpt/
Watch the video - http://tinyurl.com/43atdz5

Now, through MOCPS’s People, Priorities and Learning Together, PPLT initiative, expansion of CUSP and HAI prevention are underway. Such efforts include expansion of CLABSI prevention across Missouri and a new collaborative to reduce catheter-associated urinary tract infections in Missouri, including a regional bi-state collaborative in the Greater Kansas City Metropolitan area.

“The work of MOCPS is proving to be a successful model in creating the synergy needed to exponentially improve the safety of health care, through coordination, collaboration, and facilitation with health care providers, professionals and patients,” said MOCPS director, Becky Miller. “We are pleased to have a part in this important work in Missouri and congratulate all organizations and individuals that work with us to move toward increasing our learning aimed at preventing medical mistakes into the future.”

View list of participating health care providers: http://mocps.org/docs/2011412162221.pdf

View MOCPS Participant Map: http://www.mocps.org/docs/2011412163642.pdf

More About MOCPS – The Missouri Center for Patient Safety was founded by the Missouri Hospital Association, Missouri State Medical Association and Primaris as a private, nonprofit corporation to serve as a leader to fulfill its vision of a health care environment safe for all patients, in all processes, all the time.

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