Implementing a patient safety and quality program across two merged pediatric institutions.
BACKGROUND
Academic centers are among the health care organizations that have used consolidation as a strategy to improve efficiency and reduce costs. In 1997, the New York Hospital and The Presbyterian Hospital underwent a full-asset merger to become New York City's largest medical center, known as the New York-Presbyterian Hospital (NYPH). In 2006, recognition of the challenges of the Children's Service Line at NYPH led to the formation of a Patient Safety and Quality Program to deliver consistently safe and effective health care.
Each campus has a children's quality council, an interdisciplinary group that discusses and prioritizes safety and quality issues. The quality councils from each campus report directly to a bicampus children's quality steering committee formed to ensure that similar safety practices and standards are implemented across both children's hospitals. A safety subcommittee, which primarily coordinates and follows up on leadership safety walk rounds, and a significant-events subcommittee, which reviews morbidities and mortalities, report to each hospital's quality council.
The bicampus pediatric quality and safety program is organized around five broad themes: improving the culture of safety, reducing the frequency of health care-acquired infections, reducing harm in the health care setting, using information technology to improve the quality and safety of care provided to patients and families, and measuring the effectiveness of care in key areas. Two sample initiatives--building family engagement and prevention of adverse medication events--illustrate the program's successes and challenges.


CONCLUSIONS
Developing a pediatric safety and quality program across two campuses has been challenging but has led to important improvements at both organizations.
Abramson
Erika
E
Department of Pediatrics, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, USA.
Hyman
Daniel
D
Osorio
S Nena
SN
Kaushal
Rainu
R
D000046:Academic Medical Centers / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D006273:Health Facility Merger; D006284:Health Plan Implementation / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000517:prevention & control; D009519:New York City; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D015279:Organizational Culture; D010372:Pediatrics / Q000592:standards*; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D012308:Risk Management; D017751:Safety Management / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration