Patient Safety: Safe Practices 2010 

Current Activity:

• Access the final report: Safe Practices for Better Healthcare – 2010 Update
• NQF endorsed 34 safe practices: List of Endorsed Practices (PDF)
• Learn more about Safe Practices

The Opportunity

Errors in healthcare cause harm to patients in all settings of care. Best recognized are hospital errors: approximately 1 in 10 patients in hospitals experience errors that cause harm. However, while they are less well-recognized or documented, errors that harm patients also occur in other environments of care.

Healthcare-associated infections account for an estimated 1.7 million infections and 99,000 associated deaths each year¹. At least 1.5 million preventable drug events occur each year due to drug mix-ups and unintentional overdoses. Up to 10% of hospitalized patients suffer from an infection acquired while they are in the hospital

The harm can also be measured by heavy financial costs. Preventable errors have been estimated to cost the United States $17 - $29 billion per year in healthcare expenses, lost worker productivity, lost income and disability². Meanwhile, healthcare expenditures are growing at more than seven percent per year and patient safety is improving by only one percent³. 

About the Project

The Safe Practices for Better Healthcare present a set of practices that have been demonstrated to be effective in reducing the occurrence of adverse healthcare events across a variety of environments. They were originally designed to work in concert with NQF’s Serious Reportable Events and the ongoing endorsement of patient safety measures. The interaction with these programs will continue to be refined. NQF is moving to an annual update cycle and the 2010 update builds on NQF’s original Safe Practices, first endorsed in 2003 then updated in 2006 and 2009.  

Objectives

The existing Safe Practices for Better Healthcare will be updated with the most contemporary evidence-base and expanded implementation approaches. 

Process

The Safe Practice maintenance process for the 2010 cycle includes an initial review of the existing practice specifications by NQF staff and technical content experts, and a review of the latest healthcare literature. Once this initial process is completed, the findings will be presented to the Safe Practices Steering Committee for review, discussion and inputs. After the Steering Committee has completed this review of the existing 34 practices, NQF will post the existing Safe Practice statements and their specifications, with any recommended modifications for public/member comment. NQF staff and the Steering Committee will subsequently review the public comments received and respond as needed. This is in keeping with the NQF Consensus Development Process. The Safe Practices, and any revisions, will then be reviewed by the CSAC and the NQF Board of Directors for final endorsement.

Funding

Funding for this project is generously provided by the Texas Medical Institute of Technology (TMIT).

Related NQF Work

Project: Safe Practices 2009

Contact Information

For more information, contact Peter Angood, MD (Senior Advisor, Patient Safety) or Jennifer Hurst, MHS at 202-559-9498 or via e-mail at patientsafety@qualityforum.org.

Notes

• 1. Yokoe DS et al.  A Compendium of Strategies to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections in Acute Care Hospitals. ICHE 2008; 28(1) S12-21.
• 2. IOM, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; 1999.
• 3. Catlin A, Cowan C, Heffler S, et al., National health spending in 2005: the slowdown continues, Health Affairs, 2007;26(1):142-153.