Partnering with patients on WIHI

Madge Kaplan writes:

The next WIHI broadcast — Partnering with Patients for Safety: The Next Phase of Work and Commitment — will take place on Thursday, May 8, from 2 to 3 PM ET, and I hope you'll tune in.

Our guests will include:

• Tejal K. Gandhi, MD, MPH, CPPS, President, National Patient Safety Foundation and Lucian Leape Institute
• Susan Edgman-Levitan, PA, Executive Director, John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation, Massachusetts General Hospital
• Maureen Bisognano, President and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)
• Linda K. Kenney, Executive Director and President of MITSS (Medically Induced Trauma Support Services, Inc.)

Health care is at a tipping point with respect to patient engagement — from something that’s “nice to do” (or even “the right thing to do”) to something that’s absolutely necessary. Research and experience are making it clear that no health care organization can operate in a reliably safe way without the involvement of patients and families. And without their involvement, any organization’s safety agenda is bound to encounter diminishing returns. Patients and family members offer extra eyes and ears to events unfolding around them, and have crucial knowledge about and perspectives on what kinds of changes will help them the most.

To frame what a vision of patient engagement needs to encompass, and what an across-the-board implementation of that vision needs to embrace, The National Patient Safety Foundation’s Lucian Leape Institute (LLI) has just published a comprehensive report that lays it all out: Safety Is Personal: Partnering with Patients and Families for the Safest Care. The contents of the report and how to make it actionable are our focus on the May 8 WIHI: Partnering with Patients for Safety — The Next Phase of Work and Commitment.

NPSF’s Dr. Tejal Gandhi, IHI’s Maureen Bisognano, Susan Edgman-Levitan, and Linda Kenney will walk us through the report’s recommendations, anchored by some of the latest research on the link between patient engagement and health outcomes; identify barriers that must be overcome; and describe a clear set of responsibilities that need to be owned and shared by health care leaders, clinicians and staff, and policy makers. Patients and families cannot be held responsible for safety, but they can assist at every level with redesigning care and shaping an organization’s safety agenda. WIHI host Madge Kaplan welcomes you to this discussion. Please tune in! ​

I hope you'll join us! You can enroll for the broadcast here.