Care For PA

For some 20 years, Pennsylvania has been recognized as a leader in patient safety, through a host of regional, state, and national efforts, such as the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council, which collects data from hospitals and makes it available to the public.

In the late 1990s, though, the momentum toward improved quality and patient safety began to grow from health policy experts, government, consumers, insurers, and providers themselves. The result has been a number of regional, state, and national efforts.

State Initiatives

Pennsylvania's passed Act 13 (the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error Act), which required the creation of the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, the first program of its kind in the nation to track hospital data to identify problems and recommend solutions that promote patient safety. Other state initiatives include Quality Insights of Pennsylvania , VHA East Coast ,and VHA Pennsylvania's rapid response teams and prevention of adverse drug events.

Regional Initiatives

In southeastern Pennsylvania, the Regional Medication Safety Program for Hospitals has received national recognition by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations as one of the top five large-scale collaborations in the United States, and was lauded in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In western Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative medication safety and infection control initiatives helped several hospitals achieve significant reductions in infections and medication errors.

National Initiatives

These state and regional efforts are combined with numerous national initiatives, such as the Surgical Care Improvement Project, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 100K Lives Campaign, Premier's hospital quality incentive demonstration project, and the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations Continuous Survey Readiness Program, to name a few. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and now health insurers are adding quality and "pay-for-performance�? initiatives as well.

These efforts are aiding Pennsylvania's hospitals in their continual quest to improve quality and patient safety.

The best care possible for every patient--that's the mission of every hospital, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It's ingrained in hospital mission and culture, and it's the personal motivation of the entire hospital family, from caregivers to support personnel, to board members, to volunteers (see related article, Everyone Has a Role in Improving Hospital Quality and Patient Safety).

Rate this article.