Human Services News

From U.S. Newswire Releases:

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) today announced, with the support of prominent leaders in American health care, a national campaign to dramatically reduce incidents of medical harm in U.S. hospitals.

The 5 Million Lives Campaign will ask hospitals to improve more rapidly than before the care they provide in order to protect patients from five million incidents of medical harm over a 24-month period, ending December 9, 2008.

This represents a continuation of the largest improvement effort undertaken in recent history by the health care industry.

The Campaign was announced by IHI President and CEO Donald Berwick, MD, MPP, speaking before thousands of health care professionals attending the organization's 18th National Forum, held in Orlando.

The new Campaign -- which will be sponsored principally by America's Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans -- builds upon the success of the 100,000 Lives Campaign, in which 3,100 participating hospitals reduced inpatient deaths by an estimated 122,000 in 18 months through overall improvement in care, including improvement associated with six interventions recommended by the initiative.

Joining Dr. Berwick at his announcement were leaders of America's Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans, the American Hospital Association (AHA), the American Nurses Association (ANA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), each pledging that their organization will act as national champions and clinical advisors for the critical work ahead.

Also present on stage was Sorrel King, a patient safety activist whose daughter died from a medical error in 2001.

The 5 Million Lives Campaign will promote the adoption of 12 improvements in care (detailed below) that can save lives and reduce patient injuries, and it aims to enroll even more hospitals than participated in the previous Campaign.

"No one in health care can feel comfortable with the magnitude of infections, adverse drug events, and other complications that hospital patients endure.

This Campaign joins those efforts, and seeks leverage and scale that our nation has never had before to make care safe -- everywhere," said Dr. Berwick.

Several preeminent authorities on patient safety and health care improvement have reviewed and endorsed this estimate and the Campaign's aim.

Prevent pressure ulcers...by reliably using science-based guidelines for prevention of this serious and common complication.

The 5 Million Lives Campaign is made possible through the generous leadership and support of America's Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans.

Dozens of facilities have reported that they have gone over a year without a Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia, a leading killer among all hospitalacquired infections, demonstrating that this sort of complication is not inevitable.

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