Innovation and Change

Patient Safety

Any sustainable system also needs to consider patient safety. In 2009, HMSA established a Patient Safety Program and adopted the Never Events program from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Never Events are medical problems that should never happen, such as surgery on the wrong body part, foreign objects left in a patient, or death or serious disability due to incompatible blood or blood products. The program focuses on improving quality in hospitals by avoiding preventable situations with negative results.

Another aspect of HMSA’s Patient Safety Program is funding and support for a national effort to eliminate deadly catheter-related bloodstream infections. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are about 80,000 episodes of bloodstream infections due to central-line catheters each year in the U.S., and more than half of them are preventable.

Stop Bloodstream Infections, an initiative developed by the Johns Hopkins University Quality and Safety Research Group, has generated significant results nationwide. In Hawaii, HMSA is providing the funding and support for a collaboration of hospitals to work together to reduce deadly bloodstream infections in intensive care units and build an infrastructure for continuing patient safety and quality efforts.