Three of the nation's leading hospital systems plan to combat medical errors in hospitals by developing a comprehensive approach to patient safety.
The Safest Hospital Alliance, comprised of Wellmont Health System (Kingsport, Tenn.), Adventist Health System (Winter Park, Fla.) and Novant Health (Winston-Salem, N.C.), will tackle an issue that the Institute of Medicine rates as the eighth-leading cause of death in the United States, higher than motor-vehicle crashes, breast cancer or AIDS.
By creating metrics and identifying best practices, the alliance's Safest Hospital Initiative will seek to specifically define how a truly "safe" hospital should function and provide treatment to its patients.
The alliance's members serve approximately 1.5 percent of all patients in the United States, and it has assembled a blue-ribbon advisory panel that includes safety and quality experts as well as former U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.
