Healthcare Leaders to Address Patient Safety and Reform at the National Patient Safety...

Healthcare Leaders to Address Patient Safety and Reform at the National
Patient Safety Foundation Congress, Washington, DC, May 20-22

MEDIA ALERT

WASHINGTON, May 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Focusing on critical healthcare
reform efforts and best practices essential to reducing preventable adverse
events, and responding to President Obama's bold principles for change,
influential leaders will gather at the National Patient Safety Foundation
Congress this week to discuss the fundamental shifts necessary to keep
patients safe and strengthen the quality of care.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080307/AQF053LOGO)

The Administration's newly-released principles for Transforming and
Modernizing America's Health Care System include a key mandate to improve
patient safety and care. A decade after the seminal Institute of Medicine
report To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, and despite a
determined focus across healthcare, multiple tens of thousands of Americans
still die each year as a result of unintended adverse events, including
healthcare associated infections. The personal toll is devastating, and the
economic impact, estimated at upwards of $26 billion annually, is staggering.

In tandem with the Administration's calls for dramatic change in healthcare,
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently announced
Recovery Act resources designed to support critical patient safety efforts,
stating that "the status quo is unsustainable."

Program Highlights:

IOM Report Retrospective and the Decade Ahead

This expert panel will feature distinguished members of the Lucian Leape
Institute, including a number of architects of the To Err Is Human report, and
will provide a retrospective on accomplishments in patient safety in the ten
years since the release of this pivotal publication. With this foundation of
knowledge, these leaders will then discuss and identify the opportunities for
change within the system and how to best accomplish these life-saving goals.

-- Janet Corrigan, President and CEO of the National Quality Forum
-- Dr. Lucian Leape, Adjunct Professor of Health Policy, Harvard School
of
Public Health
-- Dr. Donald Berwick, President and CEO, Institute for Healthcare
Improvement
-- Dr. Carolyn Clancy, Director, Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality
-- James Conway, Senior Vice President, Institute for Healthcare
Improvement
-- Dr. David Lawrence, Chairman and CEO (retired), Kaiser Foundation
Health
Plan and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals
-- Julianne Morath, Chief Quality and Safety Officer, Vanderbilt
University
Medical Center
-- Dr. Dennis O'Leary, President Emeritus, The Joint Commission

-- Paul O'Neill, former Chairman and CEO, Alcoa, and 72nd Secretary of
the U.S. Treasury

Health Policy Reform: The Unfinished Business of the Baby Boom Generation

The Honorable John Kitzhaber, MD, Governor of Oregon (1995-2003) will discuss
the critical importance of shifting the national debate from how we pay for
healthcare to what we are buying; how care is organized and delivered; and
what return on investment we are getting in terms of health. He will also
examine the key design elements of a new system and the steps we need to take
to achieve the goals of health policy reform.

Patient Safety: Reaching for Transformational Change in Challenging Times

Alan Aviles, President of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation
(HHC), the largest municipal hospital and healthcare system in the country,
will detail how HHC has been transformed by implementing a clear and
determined plan to deliver safe, efficient, patient-centered care. Despite
funding and resource limitations, HHC has maintained a core focus on patient
safety and achieved acclaimed results, providing a model of practical guidance
during these challenging economic times.

A complete listing of participants is available at www.npsf.org.

The 2009 NPSF Patient Safety Congress, attended by over 1200 healthcare
professionals, will be held at the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention
Center in National Harbor, Maryland (just outside Washington, DC), on May
20-22.

About the National Patient Safety Foundation:

The National Patient Safety Foundation is an independent not-for-profit
501(c)(3) organization that has been diligently pursuing one mission since its
founding in 1997 -- to improve the safety of the healthcare system for the
patients and families it serves. As the widely recognized voice of patient
safety, NPSF is unwavering in its determined and committed focus on uniting
disciplines and organizations across healthcare, championing a collaborative,
inclusive, multi-stakeholder approach. From transformative strategic
initiatives to tactics, tools, and vital information resources, NPSF defines
and develops groundbreaking programs designed to accelerate positive change
and drive forward the patient safety mission.

SOURCE National Patient Safety Foundation

David Coletta of National Patient Safety Foundation, +1-617-391-9908,
dcoletta@npsf.org