MHA releases PSO annual report on patient safety efforts

By

Patrick Jones

|

The Michigan Health and Hospital Association (MHA) Keystone Center recently released their annual report, which details the center’s accomplishments throughout FY 2020-2021. The report discusses the center’s impact and future frameworks around health equity, workplace safety, and maternal health. 

 

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The MHA Keystone Center is a Federally-listed Patient Safety Organization (PSO) created by the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (PSQIA). Under the PSQIA, PSOs collect data from adverse events to collectively learn from mistakes and inefficient procedures in care. The act also gives health care workers legal protection in reporting these errors to create a culture of learning and improvement in hospitals. 

The MHA Keystone Center takes this data from health care workers and provides feedback and recommendations to the potential solution to the problem. It aims to improve quality and safety in health care statewide. The report says:

“Since its inception in 2003, the MHA Keystone Center has served as a driving force to improve the safety and quality of health care statewide and beyond. This past program year, the MHA Keystone Center and its member hospitals worked tirelessly to advance care and ensure that every person in every community receives high-quality, equitable, and safe care.”

 

Health Equity

One of the center’s key priorities is addressing disparities and achieving health equity in health systems statewide. According to the report, over 130 hospitals and health systems in Michigan signed the MHA pledge to address racism and health inequities. The pledge indicates a “unified commitment to addressing disparities, dismantling institutional racism, and achieving health equity.”

The center created a guide for hospitals and health systems to assist their organization in addressing disparities and provides recommendations for action and policy implementation. 

The report says the center also updated their PSO event reporting platform to collect data relating to race and ethnicity to measure how adverse events relate to those metrics. It also launched the Assessing Hospitals and Health Systems to Promote Equity project to “increase organizational preparedness in addressing health disparities through consistent collection, training, validation, stratification, and use of accurate demographic data.”

 

Workplace Safety

The report also highlights the work of the MHA Workplace Safety Collaborative, which aims to reduce injury and safety through educational events and insights from subject matter experts. According to the report, 22 hospitals submitted occupational safety and health administration data to the MHA Keystone Center resulting in relevant PSO safety alerts and safe tables. 

The MHA Workplace Safety Collaborative aims to address four key areas: violence in the health care setting, injuries from sharps and needlesticks, safe patient handling/musculoskeletal injuries, and slips, trips, and falls. 

 

Maternal Health

The report also discusses the importance of improving maternal and infant health through the Michigan Alliance for Innovation on Material Health (MI AIM). The report says:

“This program year, the MHA Keystone Center and the [MI AIM] focused on driving improvement in severe maternal morbidity and maternal mortality rates by addressing racial disparities in maternal care and increasing compliance with evidence-based, obstetrical safety bundles in Michigan birthing hospitals.”

Since MI AIM’s inception in 2016, there has been a 6.68% decrease in severe maternal morbidity, a 6.51% decline in severe hypertension complications, and a 20.96% reduction in complications from obstetric hemorrhage, according to the report. 

Molly C. Dwyer-White, vice president of safety and quality at MHA and executive director of the MHA Keystone Center, says:

“As we celebrate the successes of the past year, the MHA Keystone Center is already looking ahead to deepen its support of member hospitals and health systems. While our goals may shift from year to year, our steadfast commitment to helping members provide person-centered, evidence-based, and equitable care remains constant.”