Pulse
Pulse
Call for Letters of Intent to Conduct Research and Development in Patient Safety
Applications invited for grant projects to begin in 2012.
The National Patient Safety Foundation’s (NPSF’s) Research Grants Program seeks to stimulate new, innovative projects directed toward enhancing patient safety in the United States. The Program’s objective is to promote studies leading to the prevention of human errors, system errors, patient injuries and the consequences of such adverse events in the healthcare setting. In this first stage of a two-stage application process, Letters of Intent (LOIs) are solicited for research and development that is broadly related to identifying the causes of preventable injuries and errors and/or developing prevention strategies and methods to implement them. Based on these LOIs, a limited number of applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal.
In order to be eligible for consideration, LOIs must be delivered to NPSF no later than September 6, 2011. The number of grants to be awarded will depend on the nature and quality of applications received and the total funds available. A multidisciplinary team of experts will evaluate the LOIs. Investigators will be notified of the status of their LOIs no later than November 18, 2011.
In the second stage of the process, a limited number of applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal, for which more detailed instructions will be provided. Full proposals will be due on January 27, 2012. Finalists will be notified of acceptance or rejection for a grant award no later than April 6, 2012.
For more information, contact NPSF at research@npsf.org or 617.391.9900.
ECRI Institute and Health Care Improvement Foundation Launch CT Radiation Safety Collaborative
Philadelphia-area hospitals and imaging centers collaborate to reduce risks from CT radiation.
ECRI Institute, an independent nonprofit that researches the best approaches to improving patient care, and the Health Care Improvement Foundation, an independent nonprofit corporation with a multi-dimensional focus on healthcare safety, announce the launch of a new Partnership for Patient Care regional collaborative focused on improving CT radiation safety. Jointly funded by area hospitals and Independence Blue Cross, this collaborative will engage hospitals and imaging centers in Philadelphia and surrounding counties in a 12-month project aimed at strengthening patient safety specific to CT imaging.
“The overall goal of this program is for 100% of the participants to be actively monitoring recorded CT radiation doses in order to deliver doses that are as low as reasonably achievable,” said Kathy Shostek, senior risk management analyst, ECRI Institute, and the program’s manager.
CT radiation dose can result in unnecessarily high exposures, placing patients at increased risk of cancer and other conditions. Inappropriate radiation doses nationally have raised public concerns and attracted attention in the media recently. Specific strategies for this program will focus on addressing factors related to inappropriate or excessive radiation doses and implementing practices that optimize CT studies.
The Partnership for Patient Care (PPC) is a multi-year patient safety collaborative among the Health Care Improvement Foundation, Independence Blue Cross, and healthcare organizations across Southeastern Pennsylvania. The Partnership’s objective is to accelerate the effective adoption of evidence-based clinical practices by pooling the resources, knowledge, and efforts of providers and other stakeholders.
The initiative was announced on June 7, 2011, at a kick-off conference held at ECRI Institute. Nearly 100 healthcare administrators and radiology professionals from more than 30 area hospitals attended the program. Keynote presenter, William Hendee, PhD, Medical College of Wisconsin, and ECRI Institute medical physicists, Jason Launders, MSc, and Rohit Inamdar, MSc, provided background on safety issues and identified strategies to protect patients from radiation overexposure.
Participating facilities will take a confidential patient safety survey to assess CT scanning services at the start of the program as a baseline and again at the end to assess improvement. The program includes reporting of CT radiation dose data, ongoing educational seminars, assistance in implementing action goals, and participation in a collaborative website. ECRI Institute’s interdisciplinary staff will be actively involved with the program.
Transforming Nursing Practice through Technology & Informatics
The HIMSS Board of Directors has approved a position statement describing how to transform nursing practice through technology and informatics.
Nurses are key leaders in developing the infrastructure for effective and efficient health information technology that transforms the delivery of care. Recognizing this vital leadership role of nurses in providing quality patient care, the HIMSS Board of Directors has approved a position statement describing how to transform nursing practice through technology and informatics. Leaders from the HIMSS Nursing Informatics Community, representing over 2,900 members who not only serve the nursing profession, but also, the broader healthcare industry and HIMSS membership at large, developed the position statement.
The position statement supports the landmark report from the Institute of Medicine and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health. The report provides criteria to transform the nursing profession, leading to new roles and leadership positions for nurses in the redesign of the healthcare system.
As stated in the report, “The United States has the opportunity to transform its healthcare system, and nurses can and should play a fundamental role in this transformation. However, the power to improve the current regulatory, business, and organizational conditions does not rest solely with nurses; academia, government, businesses, healthcare organizations, professional associations, consumers and the insurance industry all must play a role.”
HIMSS concurs with this statement and has outlined specific actions in its position statement for each of these constituencies. In addition, as noted in the position statement, a new type of nurse leader role is emerging: “the Nursing Informatics Executive.”
…HIMSS expects a growing demand for this strategic and operational role to permeate the majority of healthcare organizations to support not only nursing practice, but the entire care delivery team in anticipating and adapting to changes in the healthcare environment. Emerging nursing informatics leadership roles are critical to engage in the necessary transformational activities and bridge the new care delivery models into clinical practice with the right technology solutions…
(from the position statement)
The paper is available at www.himss.org/handouts/HIMSSPositionStatementTransformingNursingPracticethroughTechnologyInformatics.pdf.