Ensuring the safe provision of medical care has become both a department goal and a national imperative. Strong support within the hospital through the Patient Safety & Health Outcomes Research Committee, various Quality Management Committees, and the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation (NMFF) Quality Assurance Committee has improved our capacity to capture meaningful data to enhance patient safety. Collaboration with a variety of departments including Cardiology, Urology, Infectious Disease, Geriatrics, Internal Medicine, Preventive Medicine, and Pharmacy has provided both research and operational opportunities to study and integrate safety science principles. National visibility for such endeavors has been noted at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Annual Meeting.

Efforts are presently underway to optimize our superb informatics infrastructure in the area of patient safety principles through innovative ideas such as a voluntary reporting system for potential adverse events. The breadth of clinical emergency medicine requires proactive processes such as this to provide the safest care possible to our patients. Integrating these essential principles into our daily operation is sure to improve our goal of providing the most accurate, dependable, and compassionate patient care.

Our commitment to enhancing patient safety has created national and international research collaborations, such as the Center for Safety in Emergency Care (CSEC), which is funded nationally by the Agency for Healthcare and Research Quality (AHRQ). The Center is under the direction of Principal Investigator Robert Wears, MD from the University of Florida at Jacksonville, and consists of 4 sites, 3 in the United States and 1 in Canada. Close working relationships with investigators in England and Australia continue to offer new insights into safety science and have resulted or will result in publications of original research, textbook chapters, and lecture opportunities. Christopher Beach, MD is the site investigator for CSEC at NMH.

Work through this group has also led to funding from the National Patient Safety Foundation. Presently, investigators are searching for methods to ensure more reliable methods of communication at shift end, known as transition. The impact of this ED study has broad implications for all moments of transfer of authority and responsibility from one professional caregiver to another, in any area of the hospital. Preliminary data will be presented at venues such as SAEM’s Annual Meeting and the Human Factors and Ergonomic Society’s Annual Meeting.