Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #120882

Tejal Gandhi, MD MPH, Division of General Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 1620 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02120, (617) 732-5500 ext. 31979, tgandhi@partners.org.

In this talk, Dr. Gandhi will describe the creation of the patient safety program at Brigham and Women's Hospital, the organization of the patient safety team, and how it is integrated into overall quality activities of the hospital. In addition, she will describe the work the team is doing in creating a culture of safety, improving reporting, improving event analysis, follow-up, and feedback, improving medication safety, and increasing proactive risk assessment. Projects include Executive WalkRounds, web-based reporting, increased accountability from senior leadership, action item tracking, barcode technology implementation, and critical test result communication. Lessons learned from this work in hospital implementation of safety efforts will be described.

In addition, Dr. Gandhi will discuss current patient safety research projects that are underway, particularly focusing on the use of information technology to improve safety. Projects include studying the impact of electronic prescribing on medication errors, the impact of an electronic results management application on timely follow-up of test results, the impact of patient websites on accuracy of side effect identification and medication list accuracy, and the impact of barcode technology on inpatient nursing and pharmacy errors. Areas for further reseach

Learning Objectives:

• Summarize inpatient and outpatient patient safety activities and lessons from Brigham and Women's Hospital
• Draw on conceptual ideas of Dr. Avedis Donabedian to broaden our understanding and context of patient safety work
• Discuss recent and current innovation projects, particulalry using information technology and electronic order entry with decison support, to improve patient safety and quality.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation