PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA—ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO is pleased to announce Jefferson Health as the winner of their 2021 Safety Excellence Award. This first annual award recognizes a PSO member for outstanding patient safety efforts and initiatives.

Jefferson Health’s award-winning initiative detailed how the health system successfully designed and deployed a comprehensive safety management system as a means to clinical integration across their entire health system. They redirected their safety approach from a departmental/project-based approach to a system-wide integrated and coordinated safety management system across 18 hospitals.

“It is an honor for Jefferson Health to be recognized with this Safety Excellence Award,” says Jonathan Gleason, MD, chief clinical officer, executive vice president, Jefferson Health. “It is essential that we approach safety through the implementation of elite safety management systems and tools during this time of tremendous instability in the healthcare workforce. Healthcare must rise to the current unique challenges with a rigorous approach to systematically improving safety that is deeply rooted in safety science. We can’t ask our amazing people to do more, or try harder; we need to build them better systems. That has been our approach. Our safety management system is designed to serve people.”

Underpinned by human factor engineering and high reliability principles, Jefferson designed an integrated network of centralized tools and processes, starting with a single event reporting and learning platform during the pandemic. They increased “great catch reporting” by 88 percent, increased system-wide engagement by launching 185 tiered and escalating huddles, reduced central line associated blood stream infections, reduced the time to launch root cause analysis (RCA) from 9.4 days to 3 days, and reduced serious safety events.

“It is clear from this initiative that the integration of clinical practices and patient safety efforts can be the key to ensuring the delivery of high-quality and safe care for patients,” says Dheerendra Kommala, MD, chief medical officer of ECRI. “Jefferson Health is well-deserving of our Safety Excellence Award and we are honored to partner with them through our Patient Safety Organization.”

Throughout this process, Jefferson Health utilized ECRI and the ISMP PSO’s annual Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns report to support their strategy for prospective risk assessments. They also employed ISMP’s best practice recommendations to review serious safety event investigations related to medication safety.

The 2021 Safety Excellence Award presentation took place on November 3, 2021, at the ECRI and ISMP PSO Annual Meeting. Two organizations received honorable mentions:

• Cooper University Health System, Camden, NJ | COVID Vaccination Safety
• BayCare Health System, Inc., Tampa, FL | Zero Harm in Ambulatory Care

The ECRI and the ISMP PSO combines the skills of ECRI, the global voice for solutions to minimize risk and improve the safety and quality of patient care, and ISMP, which has served as a vital force for preventing medication errors and driving change in medical practice and pharmaceutical products. By combining their two PSOs, ECRI and ISMP created one of the largest patient safety entities in the world with more than 4.6 million analyzed events—including 34,000 related to COVID-19—submitted by the nation's most respected health systems and providers across all care settings.

To learn more about ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO, or to request a demo, visit https://www.ecri.org/pso, call (610) 825-6000, or e-mail clientservices@ecri.org.

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About ECRI

ECRI is an independent, nonprofit organization improving the safety, quality, and cost-effectiveness of care across all healthcare settings. With a focus on patient safety, evidence-based medicine, and health technology decision solutions, ECRI is respected and trusted by healthcare leaders and agencies worldwide. Over the past fifty years, ECRI has built its reputation on integrity and disciplined rigor, with an unwavering commitment to independence and strict conflict-of-interest rules. ECRI is the only organization worldwide to conduct independent medical device evaluations, with labs located in North America and Asia Pacific. ECRI is designated an Evidence-based Practice Center by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO is a federally certified Patient Safety Organization as designated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) formally became an ECRI Affiliate in 2020. Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, President and CEO of ECRI, has been recognized by the Philadelphia Business Journal as a Healthcare Leader in 2021. Visit www.ecri.org and follow @ECRI_Org on Twitter.

About the Institute for Safe Medication Practices

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) is the only 501c (3) nonprofit organization devoted entirely to preventing medication errors. ISMP is known and respected as the gold standard for medication safety information. For more than 25 years, it also has served as a vital force for progress. ISMP’s advocacy work alone has resulted in numerous necessary changes in clinical practice, public policy, and drug labeling and packaging. Among its many initiatives, ISMP runs the only national voluntary practitioner medication error reporting program, publishes newsletters with real-time error information read and trusted throughout the global healthcare community, and offers a wide range of unique educational programs, tools, and guidelines. In 2020, ISMP formally affiliated with ECRI, and ECRI and the ISMP PSO is a federally certified Patient Safety Organization by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. As a watchdog organization, ISMP receives no advertising revenue and depends entirely on charitable donations, educational grants, newsletter subscriptions, and volunteer efforts to pursue its life-saving work. Visit www.ismp.org and follow @ismp_org.

About Jefferson Health

Jefferson Health, home of Sidney Kimmel Medical College, is reimagining health care in the greater Philadelphia region and southern New Jersey. Jefferson’s dedicated team of doctors, nurses, health professionals and staff provide a range of primary to highly specialized care through 18 hospitals (ten are Magnet^®-designated by the ANCC for nursing excellence), more than 50 outpatient and urgent care locations, the NCI-designated Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Moss Rehabilitation Hospitals and Magee Rehabilitation and the JeffConnect^® telemedicine program. For 2021-2022, Jefferson is ranked among the nation’s best hospitals in seven specialties by U.S. News & World Report. Jefferson Health’s mission is to improve the lives of patients in the communities it is privileged to serve through safe, effective, equitable, compassionate care.

For more information, contact:
Laurie Menyo, Director of Strategic Communications
610.825.6000 ext. 5310
lmenyo@ecri.org