Children’s National receives top safety and quality award

As part of a collaborative of researchers, hospitalists and medical education specialists, Children’s National Health System was recently recognized with the highest patient safety and quality award in the country: The prestigious John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award. Administered by The Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum (NQF), two leading organizations that set standards in patient care, this award recognizes Children’s commitment to ensure safe and high-quality care for all patients.

The team at Children’s National helped develop a package of interventions used by more than 50 leading hospitals in the U.S. as part of a collaborative initiative called the I-PASS Study Group. The group helps standardize communications during handoffs of patients from one care team to another. This award-winning program was also shown to reduce harmful medical errors in a multi-center study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Patient handoffs happen multiple times per day in every hospital in the country, making it vitally important that the process is seamless and free of miscommunications.