How to Get Involved
If you are a medical professional
- Distribute Literature and Patient Care Packets from the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation at your office, clinics, and Hospitals. Please contact us.
- Share effective patient safety measures that your hospital, clinic, or office use with the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation.
- Become our partner in the community. Together we can work to educate the patient and the family on the importance of becoming involved in their healthcare.
- Let us know how the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation can help support research and innovative advancements in patient safety.
In the Medical Community
Patient safety starts with the medical community. Here are some of the steps being taken to improve patient safety. If you are a medical professional and want to share what you are doing please contact us so we can share it with others on our website.
Texas Medical Center organizations collaborate on patient safety initiative
http://www.uthouston.edu/media/story.htm?id=1862892
- UTHealth gets $15 million for health information technology research
http://www.uthouston.edu/media/story.htm?id=1925301
- “I will be representing the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation on their Project Advisory Committee for this amazing project. I am so honored that we were asked to serve on this committee. I hope the viewpoint of the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation can offer valuable input for this important and groundbreaking project in patient safety. Only four other institutions in the United Sates were awarded funding”- Laura Townsend co-founder of Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation." - UTHealth to serve as Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center
http://www.uthouston.edu/media/story.htm?id=1925338
- "Please note in this story that the funds are to develop the Health Information Card (an individual's ATM card) and to the Texas leader in technology development for the new reforms. This was the part of the health reform discussion that never made it to the airwaves but is critical to reducing errors and creating efficiencies. I am thrilled that our UT researchers at our school of health information technology are being recognized as national leaders. Houston should lead the nation in piloting these efforts."- Melinda Perrin- Patient Safety Advocate
Dr. Kathleen Stevens is a national leader in Patient Safety. We are lucky to have her in San Antonio. These are some of the programs and events that she is working on.
- TeamSTEPPS™ FOR PATIENT SAFETY
Hospital leaders that are interested in introducing TeamSTEPPS into their care setting may contact Dr. Kathleen Stevens to arrange a briefing. From the more than 30 Master Trainers in the area, we can help you arrange to have this program in your hospital.
TeamSTEPPS™ is the standardized federal program for healthcare team training. The new teamwork system optimizes team performance in order to resolve communication breakdowns, known to be a major contributing factor to sentinel events in patient safety. Seen as a premier example of moving evidence into practice, this evidence-based teamwork system advances quality, safety, and efficiency of patient care by improving communication and other teamwork skills among healthcare professionals. As part of the National Implementation of TeamSTEPPS project, the Department of Defense (DoD), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and ACE have partnered to build a support network to move this effective system into healthcare agencies and professional education and to study its impact.
- The First Annual Improvement Science Summit
The Way Forward
The first Improvement Science Summit will set the course for the NIH-funded nationwide research network. This one-day, pioneering event is the premier forum for improvement science, focusing on theory, research methodology, and evaluation approaches. Participants will learn about research methods in this emerging field and how to create, conduct, and assess improvement studies. Directed by visionary leaders, participants will have opportunities to collaborate and engage in multi-site improvement research projects focused on nationally identified research priorities. Discussion of the overlapping paradigms of improvement science, translational science, and implementation science will establish ‘the way forward’ in this developing field.
Date: July 7, 2010
Location: The Hyatt Regency Riverwalk Hotel in San Antonio, TX
Contact: Elizabeth Zimmerman, 301-294-3942, email ElizabethZimmerman@westat.com
Website: http://www.improvementscienceresearch.net/events/ - Summer Institute On Evidence-Based Practice
Frontline Improvement: How to Do It, How to Lead it, How to Inform It
Frontline is the foundation of any productivity!
The 2010 Institute builds capacity for health care providers to shape the future of quality and safety in health care through translating evidence into practice. Cutting edge approaches require knowing how to inform improvement with evidence, how to employ improvement strategies, and how to lead improvement at every level. Recognizing that gains are made through convergence of evidence, organizational climate, clinician vitality, and change, this all-new conference explores best approaches to accelerate front line improvement.
Participants will learn ‘what works’ in building care processes and supporting care providers in the evolving environment of improvement.
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- eICU was launched in Dec 2009 and provides tele-monitoring coverage for critically ill patients in the Baptist ICUs. We use the Philips VISICU product and information on the technology can be accessed through their web site
- Another safety related technology utilized by Baptist Obstetricians is OB AirStrip. This allows OB physicians the ability to monitor maternal-fetal labor progress remotely. It was developed by Dr. Cameron Powell, a local OB-GYN physician and Vanguard is currently considering expanding it across the system ( alot of information can be accessed on the product by googling OB AirStrip)
- As previously mentioned the entire Vanguard system is engaged in a comprehensive patient safety program, involving error prevention training being planned for all staff, management and medical staff. We are partnered with Healthcare Performance Improvement (HPI), an external consulting company that includes individuals who have successfully achieved safety results both in and outside of healthcare (ie - nuclear power, aviation). Kerry Johnson, whom you have met, is a principal in the company.
J Paul Curry, MD, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine
Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, Newport Beach, CA 92657
Principal Investigator: Contact pcurry@hoaghospital.org
Study Title: Assessment of High Resolution Pulse Oximetry (HRPO) as a Screening Tool for Detection of Occult Arousal Failure and for both Pre and Post Operative Risk Assessment
Brief overview: the above title is a mouthful, but in more relaxed jargon means we aim to prove that HRPO [a type of pulse oximetry that samples and records hemoglobin (red blood cell) oxygen saturation levels non-invasively just like the standard oximeters used everywhere today (the light thru the fingertip monitor), but unlike the standard oximeters does not smooth out the data by averaging and rounding in ten second clumps or whole percentage points] can accurately, reliably, and easily detect people in the general population that have very significant sleep breathing disorders, of which they may otherwise be totally unaware.
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