PROFESSIONAL ISSUES

Hospital patient safety effort launched to reduce errors, save lives

The full range of AMA resources will be dedicated to the campaign's physician education efforts.

By Andis Robeznieks, AMNews staff. Jan. 3/10, 2005.

By reminding physicians to do what they already know to do, the American Medical Association and the Boston-based Institute for Healthcare Improvement will work to save 100,000 lives over the next 18 months.

Launched last month at the IHI's National Forum in Orlando, Fla., the "100,000 Lives Campaign" is designed to prevent common hospital system errors that can result in unintended patient deaths. It will run through June 2006, and the goal is to get 1,500 to 2,000 hospitals involved. The AMA's focus will be physician education.

"All we're trying to do is get physicians to follow guidelines -- follow them religiously to the letter," said AMA President John C. Nelson, MD, MPH. "Every one of these guidelines is evidence-based. And this is not new. This is stuff we already know works."

The guidelines Dr. Nelson mentioned are included in six initiatives that, according to multiple published studies, can be reasonably expected to save a total of 100,000 lives if they are implemented across the nation.

The initiatives that are included in the campaign are: using rapid response teams at the first sign of patient decline; following quality guidelines for treatment of acute myocardial infarction; and preventing ventilator-associated pneumonia, surgical site infections, adverse drug events and central line infections.

Dr. Nelson said performance measures and outcomes would be recorded to test the effectiveness of the initiatives.

"We'll actually keep score," he said. "We are doing a good job. Let's take it to doing a fantastic job."

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