Patients Safety Movement Doubles MedTech Commitments

The fledgling Patients Safety Movement (PSM; USA) has gathered nearly 30 companies that have committed that the data gathered by their devices will be available to anyone interested in improving patient care.

The second annual Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit, held during January 2014 in Irvine (CA, USA), saw an additional 21 companies join the original nine medtech pledgers, which included companies such as GE Healthcare and Zoll Medical (Chelmsford, MA, USA). The new list includes market leaders such as Philips Healthcare and smaller groups such as opthalmic devices maker NeurOptics (Irvine, CA, USA). The new PSM members will publicly announce pledges to share their data, and dozens of healthcare systems and hospitals will announce their commitments as part of the PSM effort to reduce patient deaths.

The attendees also participated in workshops aimed at developing and defining new Actionable Patient Safety Solutions (APSS) for three specific challenges: healthcare-associated infections, creating a culture of safety, and hand-off communications. These three areas are responsible for more than 100,000 preventable hospital deaths a year in the United States alone. Implementation of the APSS should assist healthcare systems and hospitals in dramatically reducing preventable deaths. The keynote address was delivered by President Bill Clinton, and featured speakers included President and CEO of The Joint Commission and Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare (Oakbrook Terrace, IL, USA) Mark R. Chassin, MD.

“Since our first summit, we have received more than 100 commitments from hospitals, med tech companies and other organizations dedicated to improving patient safety, most importantly some have already been able to show measurable improvement, including saved lives,” said Joe Kiani, the founder of PSM and the Masimo Foundation (Marina Del Rey, CA, USA). “Our ultimate goal is to eliminate preventable patient deaths, and we’re going to start by creating a patient-centric movement focused on the wellbeing and dignity of patients, and holding everyone involved with healthcare—from patients, policy makers, clinicians, hospitals, and industry—accountable for improving patient safety.”

“We’re pleased to join forces with the Patient Safety Movement Foundation, and co-convene this year’s Summit. We believe that by using new tools and methods to galvanize improvement, we can achieve the attainable goal of zero preventable patient deaths by 2020,” added Dr. Chassin.

The Patient Safety Movement Foundation, established by the Masimo Foundation, is pushing for ZERO preventable patient deaths by 2020.

Related Links:
Patients Safety Movement
The Joint Commission and Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare
Masimo Foundation