Three pillars of excellent patient care are patient safety, clinical quality and risk management. At TeamHealth we have robust processes in place to ensure that we are successful with each pillar. In celebration of Patient Safety Awareness Week, let’s take a minute to recognize the great work that we do to enhance patient safety.
One program purely devoted to enhancing patient safety is TeamHealth’s Patient Safety Organization (THPSO). The THPSO was established 10 years ago by Dr. Gar LaSalle, co-founder and former CMO of TeamHealth, and was one of the first and largest PSOs to be accredited by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Below are a few interesting tidbits about THPSO.
- TeamHealth’s largest educational initiative (MineField Navigator) originated out of THPSO. Although THPSO no longer owns this initiative, case scenarios and topics taken from patient safety event trends are incorporated in the yearly releases.
- We are introducing a new educational program in 2020 titled “PSO Case Files”. We plan on releasing the first one in March!
- THPSO provides consultative support to TeamHealth’s National Substance Use Work Group. This team’s mission is to provide resources to aid in evaluating, diagnosing, treating and referring patients with substance use disorders. The team has recently focused on educating clinicians on cannabinoids, increasing awareness about medicated assisted treatment programs (MAT) and providing a forum for clinicians to ask questions to the addiction medicine experts.
- THPSO recently teamed up with the Chief Medical Training Office to develop and launch a toolkit on Human Trafficking. We often collaborate with other teams to provide resources for TeamHealth clinicians!
- THPSO has presented at the National Annual AHRQ PSO Conference three times!
Although many things in healthcare over the past ten years have changed, THPSO’s mission to conduct activities to enhance patient safety and improve the delivery of healthcare has not shifted. We continue to rely on our THPSO foundational programs (patient safety event reporting, PSO peer reviews and focused chart audits) to help us identify opportunities and drive initiatives.
It is a collective responsibility of policymakers, healthcare professionals and administrators to ensure that patients and clinicians are kept free from preventable harm. For more information about why bringing awareness to patient safety is imperative to improving healthcare go to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Patient Safety Awareness Week webpage.
Sincerely,
Ethan Bachrach, MD, MBI
Executive Director, PSO