PATIENT SAFETY

A major tenet for HHC is to assure patients remain free from preventable injury and/or unnecessary harm while under care. HHC's leadership is relentlessly focused on identifying opportunities and implementing real solutions to improve the way clinical, administrative and ancillary staff work, communicate, coordinate care and use technology so that patients are as safe as possible.

Key Patient Safety Initiative components include:

Creation of a just culture, with appropriate accountabilities, within HHC to support and sustain a commitment to patient safety;
Development and implementation of a simple, safe and confidential system for open reporting by all employees of near-misses, close calls, adverse events and opportunities for potential harm;
Measurement of success at creating and sustaining a culture of safety utilizing statistically reliable and valid evaluation tools; and
Corporate-wide sharing and promulgation of best practices derived from implementation of specific interventions to correct identified patient safety issues.

As one of the largest training grounds for clinical staff in New York City, HHC's patient volume, size and reputation uniquely position it to directly influence how patient safety evolves across the city, state, and nation. Implementation of these interventions will produce "lessons learned" and "best practices" that will serve as models for guiding patient safety culture change at other public hospitals and multi-hospital systems.