Nationwide Childrens Hospital Participating in International Childrens Hospitals Patient Safety Effort That is Saving Lives and Expanding Efforts to Employee/Staff Safety

Nationwide Children’s Hospital is part of a collaborative patient safety effort of 100+ children’s hospitals across North America that is getting results and is expanding the scope of its work to incorporate employee/staff safety.

Nationwide Children’s joined the network – the Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS) – in 2011. Over the past three years, the network’s effort has saved 5,897 children from serious harm and led to an estimated savings of more than $109 million, with consistent progress toward our goal of eliminating serious harm. These hospitals share information and data regularly to learn best practices that are then spread across the network and shared publicly, along with results, on the network’s website.

“Almost daily we see reports of safety problems at hospitals across the country. These range from medical errors and hospital-acquired conditions harming patients to hospital staff with high injury rates while caring for patients. And every hospital in the country has a program to improve patient safety,” said Marcy L. Doderer, FACHE, President & CEO, Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Vice Chair, SPS. “What makes this effort truly unique – and transformational – is that the children’s hospitals in the United States and Canada that are part of SPS have chosen a new way to improve safety. They have put aside competition to work together – sharing what works, what doesn’t and keeping kids safe while in our care. Until SPS, an effort of this magnitude never existed. And it’s working in a way that health care has never seen before.”

This week, SPS and Nationwide Children’s are taking this effort one step further. In partnership with Value Capture, which exists to support leaders who are committed to creating a new standard of performance and leadership for healthcare, SPS will hold the first-ever employee/staff safety summit for children’s hospitals. Once again, the network, which is convening in Pittsburgh, will share and learn from each other in a way that has never been done before across healthcare institutions.

“We believe SPS represents the most widespread, successful, and promising work with these values in American health care, and thus represents the biggest potential leverage point in helping to achieve our mission,” said Bill O’Rourke, Senior Advisor, Value Capture. “We are excited to work with SPS to take its efforts to the next level by expanding its focus to employee safety – which will only improve the culture of safety at participating hospitals.”

“Common sense suggests and strong research shows that worker safety goes hand-in-hand with patient safety.  In fact, working toward zero harm for employees actually strengthens our ability to bring zero harm to patients,” said Michael Fisher, president & CEO, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and Chair of SPS. “As members of SPS and as hospital and health system leaders, our obligation is to demonstrate through our actions that safety, both patient and employee, is our fundamental responsibility.  Based on our results and momentum to date, we know that we get there faster – and better – by working together.”

“When I see a hospital that is truly committed to safety across the board, I feel better about putting my child’s care in their hands,” said Beth Daley Ullem, President, Quality & Safety First; SPS board of directors member; and parent advocate. “Ensuring the safety of employees is critical to me as a parent - I want to take my child to a hospital whose employees feel safe and happy in their jobs.  I’m proud that the pediatric community is putting safety first."

SPS is a network of more than 100 children’s hospitals from the United States and Canada. SPS is funded in part by the federal Partnership for Patients program, Children's Hospital Association and the Cardinal Health Foundation. SPS is working to achieve specific goals to reduce harm in pediatric hospitals through the transparent sharing of data, successes, and learnings.


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SPS MEDIA CONTACT: Angela Krile, 740-974-3948, angela@krilecommunications.com
NATIONWIDE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL CONTACT: mediarelations@nationwidechildrens.org
 (614) 355-0495
VALUE CAPTURE MEDIA CONTACT: Melissa Moore, 412-553-1191, mmoore@valuecapturellc.com