In the 1990s, reports in several countries revealed a staggering number of patient injuries and deaths each year due to avoidable errors and deficiencies in health care, among them adverse events and complications arising from poor infection control.
[3] At the Fifty-Ninth World Health Assembly in May 2006, the Secretariat reported that the Alliance held patient safety meetings in five of the six WHO regions and 40 technical workshops in 18 countries.
The project emphasizes the central role patients and consumers can play in efforts to improve the quality and safety of healthcare around the world.
[9] On 16 July 2007, the New Zealand State Services Minister Annette King announced that "The Government is not proceeding at this stage with legislation that would have enabled the establishment of a joint agency with Australia to regulate therapeutic products."
Other key areas of work for the Commission include National Health Service accreditation, recognizing and responding to clinical deterioration, patient centered care, safety and quality in mental health and primary care and the development of national safety and quality indicators as part of the information strategies activity.
In its role primarily as a coordination and facilitation body, the Commission utilizes evidence and data and the experience, enthusiasm and commitment of consumers, clinicians, managers and other stakeholders to influence the system to make changes for the safety and quality of health care in Australia.
It works towards the New Zealand Triple Aim for quality improvement: Commission programs include medication safety, infection prevention and control, reportable events, consumer engagement and participation, and mortality review committees.
By 2006, the National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) contained more than 1,700 disease-specific diagnosis, management and treatment recommendations, developed from current medical literature.
[20][21][22] Under the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality coordinates the Patient Safety Task Force composed of three other agencies with regulatory and data collection responsibilities: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its National Electronic Disease Surveillance System, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and state Quality improvement organizations, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
[23] The AHRQ, in partnership with data organizations in 37 states, sponsors the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS), a database of the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP).
[25] In 2005, AHRQ provided links to a compendium of 140 research articles, implementation programs and tools and products used to improve patient safety, sponsored jointly with the Department of Defense (DoD)-Health Affairs.
The goal of the site is to document and share these innovations with other organizations that can adapt them in different settings, allowing the adopters to base their quality improvement plans on previously tested methods.
[citation needed] In September 2006, an Institute of Medicine report commissioned by the FDA found that its drug safety system is limited by inadequate funding, insufficient regulatory authority, and a lack of oversight by experts free of pharmaceutical industry ties.
In 2008, the FDA established a single website for both the public and the healthcare profession with access to drug safety information, including warnings, recalls, and reporting of adverse reactions, using MedWatch.
AIMS is used in over half of Australia's hospitals, and was adopted in 2005 by the New Zealand Accident Compensation Corporation and the University of Miami Medical Group in Florida.
[35] An independent non-profit corporation, the CPSI promotes solutions and collaboration among governments and stakeholders to improve patient safety, and has a five-year mandate.
Together with the Institute For Safe Medication Practices Canada and Saskatchewan Health, a Canadian Root Cause Analysis Framework is offered to healthcare organizations to analyze the contributing factors that led to a critical incident or close call.
More detailed goals included formulating protocols and guidelines to enhance continuity of care in NICUs, conducting research on specific aspects of patient safety, and reporting adverse events.
The second is to make sure that the unit's findings are used in practice, to improve the welfare of people in North Lancashire and South Cumbria and throughout the National Health Service.
Passing a survey is crucial for most organizations, since accreditation by TJC is required for participation in Medicare and some state and private health care programs.
"[53] The health care facility experiencing the sentinel event is expected to complete a thorough root cause analysis, make improvements to the underlying processes, and monitor the effectiveness of the changes.
Alerts have included issues as varied as wrong site surgery, restraint deaths, transfusion and medication errors and patient abductions.
The resulting Leapfrog Group agreed to base their purchase of health care on principles that "encourage provider quality improvement and consumer involvement".
In 2001, the initial set of quality measures were computerized physician order entry (CPOE), evidence-based hospital referral, intensive care unit (ICU) staffing by physicians experienced in critical care medicine, and a "Leapfrog Safe Practices Score", based on the National Quality Forum endorsed Safe Practices.
Additional initiatives include the Hand Hygiene Project, Prevention of Injury from Falls, and Hospital and Medical Offices Surveys on Patient Safety.
The Patient Safety Movement Foundation (PSMF) is a commitments-based global non-profit that has a bold goal to achieve ZERO preventable deaths in hospitals.
Most of these commitments align with the PSMF's Actionable Patient Safety Solutions (APSS), a collection of 34 evidence-based best practice documents which can help hospitals get closer to zero preventable in-hospital deaths when implemented in their facilities.
PSMF annually hosts its World Safety, Science & Technology Summit, which brings together all stakeholder groups to discuss solutions to the leading challenges hospitals face.
At the Summit each year, PSMF recognizes influential patient safety advocates with its Humanitarian Awards, given in memory of Beau Biden and Steven Moreau.
Its goal is to instigate a national change in ideology and practices within the healthcare environment in regard to hand hygiene, by emphasizing well-established methods proven to result in safer patient care.