Socius Award Winner Announced at Annual Patient Safety Congress
On May 04, 2007
National Patient Safety Foundation presents annual Socius Award to North Carolina Children’s Hospital at NPSF annual Congress May 2-4, 2007 in Washington, D.C.
May 4, 2007 – The Annual NPSF Socius Award was presented at the 2007 Congress. Named after the Latin word for “partner”, the Socius Award is given in recognition of work that promotes positive and effective partnering between patients/families and providers in pursuit of improved patient safety. Such work will have at its core the recognition of the importance of patient and family centered care and the critical role that patients and families play in the development and implementation of patient safety solutions. Additionally, the work must recognize the positive contributions of providers in the creation of effective partnership.
It was NPSF’s pleasure to present the Socius Award to North Carolina Children’s Hospital for their initiative, “Family Alert” system. The recently developed Family Alert Initiative enables family members to call for help in the hospital in a similar fashion to calling 911 from their homes. The Family Alert system is being added to the existing pediatric rapid response system in place at NC Children’s Hospital. The Family Alert Initiative itself is a significant achievement, but what is particularly notable is the way in which NC Children’s Hospital has partnered with families in implementing and evaluating the initiative and how NC Children’s Hospital intends to use the program to identify effective ways to partner with patients to improve safety and to share that knowledge with others.
NC Children’s Hospital’s Family Alert Initiative is a partnership that recognizes the importance of engaging families in patient safety. NC Children’s Hospital’s focus on not only implementing the program, but studying the program and demonstrating the power of that partnership through analysis of the data and a pre- and post-survey of family members, will also help guide other hospitals in their efforts to successfully partner with patients to improve safety.
Tina Schade Willis, M.D., accepted the award on behalf of North Carolina Children’s Hospital at NPSF’s 9th annual Congress in Washington, D.C. The award was presented by Pamela A. Thompson, RN, MS, FAAN, and Vice-Chair of the NPSF Board of Directors.
About the National Patient Safety Foundation
The National Patient Safety Foundation is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to improving patient safety and reducing medical errors through leadership, research, and education. It is an unprecedented partnership of health care practitioners, institutional providers, health product providers, health product manufacturers, researchers, legal advisors, patient/consumer advocates, regulator, and policy makers committed to making health care safer for patients and making patient safety a national priority. NPSF was founded in 1997 by the American Medical Association, CNA HealthPro, and 3M, with significant support from the Schering-Plough Corporation.
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