Patient Safety Alliance

Acumentra Health and Northwest Physicians Insurance Company formed the Patient Safety Alliance (PSA) in 2006 as a collaborative movement to improve patient safety and achieve excellent outcomes for hospital-based care. The PSA sponsored a learning collaborative to promote improved care delivery processes and hospital quality measures. Acumentra Health provided training and support for

• use of individual hospital and comparison performance data to drive improvment
• application of evidence-based quality improvement methods for process and outcomes improvement
• sharing of barriers and successful strategies
• influencing physicians by specialty societies and other clinician leaders

Since 2006, hospitals participating in the PSA learning collaborative achieved significant improvements for Medicare quality measures for AMI, heart failure, pneumonia, and surgical infection prevention. Beginning in August 2008, the PSA will focus on

• surgical care improvement (infection prevention and use of beta blockers for patients taking beta blockers prior to admission)
• ACEI/ARB treatment for systolic heart failure
• MRSA infection reporting to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) database

Acumentra Health will provide tools, resources, comparison data, and coaching, in addition to facilitating teleconferences and coordinating an annual conference.