The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) offers International ACS NSQIP Scholarships for two surgeons from countries other than the United States or Canada who demonstrate strong interests in surgical quality improvement.

As part of its commitment to share health literacy best practices, education, and knowledge, Health Literacy Innovations, creators of the Health Literacy Advisor™ (in Spanish—Asesor de Comunicación en Salud™), announced it will offer seven scholarships to the 11^th Annual IHA Health Literacy Conference.

Standard Register, a recognized leader in managing critical communications and information for health care, has signed an agreement with HealthTrust Purchasing Group, L.P., (HealthTrust), a Tennessee-based group purchasing organization (GPO).

The American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) launched its new research program in March by awarding $195,000 to investigators engaged in evidence-based research. Applicants who received ASHRM funding are working to improve patient outcomes through their research on high reliability organizations, serious safety events and root cause analysis. This research is intended to improve patient safety, supporting ASHRM’s goal of “Getting to ZeroTM: Eliminating Preventable Serious Safety Events.”

Leaders from 34 children’s hospitals from across the country gathered at Cardinal Health in Columbus, Ohio, on March 15 to launch a national effort to improve quality of care and patient safety in pediatric hospitals.

Professional interpreters who received more than 100 hours of training in medical interpreting had nearly two-thirds fewer errors than those with fewer than 100 hours of training and significantly fewer errors with medical consequences than ad hoc interpreters, according to a study published on March 16 in Annals of Emergency Medicine (“Errors of Medical Interpretation and Their Potential Clinical Consequences: A Comparison of Professional vs. Ad Hoc vs. No Interpreters”).

The National Quality Forum (NQF) Board of Directors has announced that NQF’s President and CEO Janet Corrigan has submitted her resignation, effective late June 2012.  Corrigan has served as NQF’s President and CEO for more than six years.

Tampa—The American College of Physician Executives (ACPE) is pleased to announce the selection of Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital as the winner of the first annual Leape Ahead Award.

Chicago—The Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET), an affiliate of the American Hospital Association (AHA), selected Maureen Bisognano, president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), as the recipient of the 2012 TRUST Award.