MMS Contributes to National Patient Safety Awareness Week

National Patient Safety Awareness Week, March 5 to 11, is a good time to highlight the Society’s continued commitment to improving patient safety and reducing medical errors.

To acknowledge this important awareness-building effort, the Society will release updated references and resources on its website (www.massmed.org/patient_safety_resources), covering patient-safety topics such as health care quality and safety, medication safety, evaluating information on the Web, and surgical safety.

Our Committee on the Quality of Medical Practice is keeping us at the forefront of patient safety initiatives throughout the Commonwealth and the country. These include:

• 100k Lives Campaign -- Developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the 100,000 Lives Campaign strives to get hospitals nationwide to implement changes proven to improve patient care and prevent avoidable deaths. The MMS has joined with other health care leaders to support this initiative. You can obtain more information about the 100k Lives Campaign at www.ihi.org.
• Ambulatory Medication Safety -- Our Committee on the Quality of Medical Practice is providing input into a program developed by the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors that provides an easy-to-use tool to help patients track their current medications. The information can then be shared with physicians and other providers along the continuum of care. More information on the program is available at www.macoalition.org.

Additionally, under the direction of the Committee on the Quality of Medical Practice, the MMS Health Policy and Health Systems Department is developing an online audio CME program with Jerome Grossman, M.D., coauthor of the recent Institute of Medicine report, Building a Better Delivery System: A New Engineering/Health Care Partnership. The program will demonstrate how minor modifications in processes can have significant impact on patient safety. The lecture will be followed by a one-on-one conversation between Dr. Grossman and MMS President Alan M. Harvey, M.D., M.B.A., to reinforce how physicians can implement such changes into their practices. Read more about this program.

– David Huffman