The Cardinal Health Foundation announced Wednesday that it will award more than $1 million in grants to help U.S. hospitals, health systems, community health clinics and other non-profit healthcare institutions improve the efficiency and quality of patient care.
Since the inception of the E3 Grant Program in 2008, the Cardinal Health Foundation has awarded 147 grants totaling more than $4.25 million to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and excellence of healthcare, nationwide.
“We appreciate how challenging and complicated the world of patient care is, and we see these grants as a catalyst to help hospitals, clinics and ambulatory settings prioritize time and expertise to focus on the implementation of best practices,” said Dianne Radigan, director of community relations for Cardinal Health.
“These grants are saving lives and that is what we are all about - making healthcare the very best it can be,” continued Radigan. “The hospitals involved are reporting reduced readmissions and lengths of stay, improved anticoagulant compliance and outcomes, more efficient use of their operating rooms, better communication among their team. All-in-all, really improving care for patients as well as saving precious healthcare dollars.”
Cardinal Health Foundation E3 Grant Program applicants are encouraged to submit funding requests for projects that will improve medication safety, particularly as patients move from hospital environments to home and other health care settings; or for projects that will improve operating room safety through the use of World Health Organization Surgical Safety checklists, which have been proven to reduce surgical morbidity and mortality by providing a list of patient safety activities that must be completed by a surgery team before a medical procedure.
In addition to receiving funding, grantees working on surgical errors will have access to coaching support from members of the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses. Grantees working on medication safety projects will have access to coaching and support from hospital pharmacy experts from the Cardinal Health Pharmacy Solutions team, which each year helps hundreds of hospitals across the country implement best practices related to medication safety and other hospital pharmacy initiatives.
Applications are being accepted through Dec. 2, 2011.
“We are honored to be a small part of this important work and continually look for new ways to support those in the field of healthcare to save days, dollars and lives,” said Radigan.