Patient safety: a tale of two institutions

The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are both working to improve patient safety. Johns Hopkins is focused on creating a culture of safety--frontline interventions at its Children's Center include a focus on the "Culture of Safety" and three programs that use information technology to "fix the broken medication process." Quantitative data indicate these programs are making care safer. At UPMC, efforts launched under the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Institute of Health Care Improvement, a program named Transforming Care at the Bedside, are redesigning care processes to support nurses and focus on patients. Interventions include family-initiated rapid response teams and other changes designed to streamline processes and use information technology to make care patient-centered. Simulation-based training targets critical procedures and performance for physicians and nurses, and a "smart room" is slated for development.