Preston Hospital Promotes Patient Safety This Week

By The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

Mar. 5–Preston Memorial Hospital will celebrate Patient Safety Awareness Week to promote the importance of patient safety in hospitals. The weeklong celebration, today through Saturday, encourages health care professionals to consider to improve patient safety and speak more openly with consumers about health care safety. Patient Safety Awareness Week also urges patients to take greater responsibility by becoming more informed health care consumers; keeping track of history and medications; working with physicians and other health care professionals as a team; involving a family member or friend in one’s care; and following a physician’s directions. In the past year, the hospital has joined an Internet-based program called the West Virginia Patient Safety Project. The program, now in more than 300 hospitals, compiles all incident reports and then provides anonymous data back to the hospitals’ quality improvement departments. The project is funded by a grant from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). West Virginia Medical Institute (WVMI) and West Virginia Hospital Institute (WVHA) applied for the grant in partnership with the West Virginia State Office of Rural Health, Verizon and Quantros, Inc., a software company that has developed an Internet-based program for recording medical errors.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

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