Patient Safety Focus
Ambulatory Patient Safety
BWH has long been a leader in error prevention and patient safety. During the past year, BWH has enhanced its quality and patient safety infrastructure to include the hospital’s outpatient settings. The primary goal is to create the safest possible environment for all patients throughout BWH’s full spectrum of care.
The initial focus with this project has been directed toward safety reporting, communicating critical test results and education efforts. In May 2004, BWH’s new web-based safety reporting system replaced the BICS reporting system, allowing ambulatory sites to report, trend and track safety related events. Outpatient sites now have the ability to identify trends occurring in their areas to further facilitate improvement efforts. In addition, through the hospital’s centralized safety structure, information can be shared across and within practices.
Communicating critical test results has been a statewide patient safety collaborative effort that has become incorporated into the JCAHO National Patient Safety Goals. The goal is to assure timely and reliable communication of results to the person most empowered to take clinical action. The patient safety team is helping to facilitate best practice communication models in procedural and testing areas.
To gain better feedback from front-line staff in ambulatory areas, the patient safety team will implement Patient Safety WalkRounds in these settings beginning in early 2005. As in inpatient settings, WalkRounds will help foster a culture in which staff feel comfortable talking openly about safety issues, in outpatient areas.
If you have questions about our ambulatory patient safety program, please contact Doreen Thomases, BSM, CPH project manager, Quality & Patient Safety or Tejal Gandhi, MD, director of Patient Safety.