Ohio Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety

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Our Vision: To make Ohio the safest place in the nation for children’s health care.

Ohio has arguably the strongest network of children’s hospitals in the nation, providing the highest quality of care to all three million Ohio children when they need it, regardless of the family’s ability to pay. Although they are already top-notch, Ohio’s children’s hospitals are committed to consistently enhancing the quality of care.

Launched in 2009, Solutions for Patient Safety was founded as a partnership between providers and the business community, under the leadership of the Ohio Business Roundtable, to improve quality and reduce costs. The partnership has realized significant results through its initial efforts. Specifically, Ohio’s children’s hospitals achieved a 60 percent reduction in surgical site infections in designated cardiac, neurosurgery and orthopedic procedures and a 40 percent reduction in overall adverse drug events. These efforts have saved 7,700 children from unnecessary harm and avoided $11.8 million in unnecessary health care costs.

Building upon this success, the Ohio Children’s Hospital Solutions for Patient Safety learning network (OCHSPS) has formed to achieve a goal that is broader in scope and bolder in ambition — eliminating all serious harm in Ohio’s children’s hospitals. Initial efforts will focus on eliminating Serious Safety Events (SSEs) in Ohio children’s hospitals and developing a patient harm index to capture all elements of harm occurring at children’s hospitals across the state. A founding member of the partnership, The Cardinal Health Foundation, has provided $2.5 million to-date in support of these efforts.

This groundbreaking work is the first of its kind in the country. Ohio is the only place where a statewide network of children’s hospitals has come together to focus on reduction of SSEs and creation of a statewide patient harm index for children.