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HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson
today announced the release of $50 million to fund 94 new research
grants, contracts and other projects to reduce medical errors and
improve patient safety.
The initiative represents the
federal government's largest single investment to address the
estimated 44,000 to 98,000 patient deaths related to medical
errors each year. The 94 projects now being funded will be carried
out at state agencies, major universities, hospitals, outpatient
clinics, nursing homes, physicians' offices, professional
societies, and other organizations across the country.
"Nothing could be more
important than making sure patients receive quality care that
doesn't cause unintended harm, and our investment in this kind of
research will pay off in terms of improved patient safety for all
Americans," Secretary Thompson said. "These grants will
help identify the causes of medical errors and develop effective
solutions to strengthen quality of care across the country."
Funded by HHS' Agency for
Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), these projects will
address key unanswered questions about how errors occur and
provide science-based information on what patients, clinicians,
hospital leaders, policymakers and others can do to make the
health care system safer. The results of this research will
identify improvement strategies that work in hospitals, doctors'
offices, nursing homes, and other health care settings across the
nation.
"Today's announcement marks
the first coordinated effort to begin compiling the best evidence
on how to reduce medical errors and share that evidence with the
clinicians and patients who can use it to improve health
care," AHRQ Director John M. Eisenberg, M.D., said.
"This patient safety portfolio is a down payment on research
that can move us forward in our understanding of the problem of
medical errors and what to do about it."
This $50 million research
initiative is the first phase of a multi-year effort. Many
institutions will receive additional funds to continue their work
in future years. These projects reflect the input of consumers,
health care providers and policymakers from a national research
summit last year led by AHRQ and its partners on the Quality
Interagency Coordination (QuIC) Task Force. There are six major
categories of awards announced today:
Supporting Demonstration
Projects to Report Medical Errors Data: These activities
include 24 projects for $24.7 million to study different methods
of collecting data on errors or analyzing data that are already
collected to identify factors that put patients at risk of medical
errors.
Using Computers and Information
Technology to Prevent Medical Errors: These activities include
22 projects for $5.3 million to develop and test the use of
computers and information technology to reduce medical errors,
improve patient safety, and improve quality of care.
Understanding the Impact of
Working Conditions on Patient Safety: These activities include
eight projects for $3 million to examine how staffing, fatigue,
stress, sleep deprivation, and other factors can lead to errors.
These issues—which have been studied extensively in aviation,
manufacturing and other industries—have not been closely studied
in health care settings.
Developing Innovative
Approaches to Improving Patient Safety: These activities
include 23 projects for $8 million to research and develop
innovative approaches to improving patient safety at health care
facilities and organizations in geographically diverse locations
across the country.
Disseminating Research Results:
These activities include seven projects for $2.4 million to help
educate clinicians and others about the results of patient safety
research. This work will help develop, demonstrate and evaluate
new approaches to improving provider education in order to reduce
errors, such as applying new knowledge on patient safety to
curricula development, continuing education, simulation models,
and other provider training strategies.
Additional Patient Safety
Research Initiatives: AHRQ will use the remaining $6.4 million
for 10 other projects covering other patient safety research
activities, including supporting meetings of state and local
officials to advance local patient safety initiatives and
assessing the feasibility of implementing a patient safety
improvement corps.
This research initiative is part
of HHS' broader efforts to improve the quality of care in America
and better assure safety across health care settings. Since 1998,
HHS has served with other federal agencies on the QuIC Task Force
to coordinate efforts toward improving the quality of care for
patients across America. In addition, Secretary Thompson created
the HHS Patient Safety Task Force in April 2001 to coordinate and
strengthen the department's existing systems for collecting data
on patient safety in concert with the states and the private
sector
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