The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded $218 million Wednesday to 26 hospitals and health systems to reduce the millions of preventable injuries and complications caused by healthcare-acquired conditions each year.
The funding comes through the Partnership for Patients initiative, a nationwide public-private collaboration to improve the quality, safety and affordability of healthcare. Known as the Hospital Engagement Networks, the 26 state, regional and national organizations will help identify solutions already working to reduce healthcare-acquired conditions, and work to promote them to other hospitals and healthcare providers.
Participants will be required to conduct intensive training programs to teach and support hospitals in making patient care safer, provide technical assistance so that hospitals can achieve quality measurement goals and establish and implement a system to track and monitor hospital progress in meeting quality improvement goals.
“At some point in our lives many of us are going to need hospital care and we need to be confident that no matter where we live, we’re going to get the best care in the world,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in a statement. “The Partnership for Patients is helping the nation’s finest health systems share their knowledge and resources to make sure every hospital knows how to provide all of its patients with the highest quality care.”
Launched in April 2011, the Partnership for Patients now consists of more than 6,500 partners, including over 3,167 hospitals, along with 2,345 physicians, nurses, patient advocates, 892 consumers and consumer groups and 256 employers and unions.
The partnership’s goal is to work together to reduce the number of hospital-acquired conditions by 40 percent and reduce hospital readmissions by 20 percent by the end of 2013.
“In just the past eight months we’ve seen an overwhelming response from doctors, employers, patient advocates and other partners who believe the time is now to improve patient safety — as a former ICU nurse and hospital administrator, I’m proud to see hospitals stepping up to the plate,” said Marilyn Tavenner, acting administrator of CMS, the HHS agency sponsoring the program, in a statement. “We look forward to working with the Hospital Engagement Networks and the hospitals on the critical and important work of making care safer, more reliable, and less costly and achieving the goals of the Partnership for Patients.”
Achieving the Partnership for Patients’ objectives would mean approximately 1.8 million fewer injuries to patients in the hospital, saving over 60,000 lives over three years, and would mean more than 1.6 million patients recover from illness without suffering a preventable complication requiring re-hospitalization.
A list of the organizations receiving awards is on the next page.
The 26 organizations receiving awards are:
American Hospital Association
Ascension Health
Carolinas HealthCare System
Catholic Healthcare West
Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council Foundation
Georgia Hospital Association Research and Education Foundation
Healthcare Association of New York State
Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania
Intermountain Healthcare
Iowa Healthcare Collaborative
Joint Commission Resources, Inc.
Lifepoint Hospitals, Inc.
Michigan Health & Hospital Association
Minnesota Hospital Association
National Public Health and Hospital Institute
New Jersey Hospital Association
Nevada Hospital Association
North Carolina Hospital Association
Ohio Children’s Hospital Solutions for Patient Safety
Ohio Hospital Association
Premier
Tennessee Hospital Association
Texas Center for Quality & Patient Safety
UHC VHA
Washington State Hospital Association