Patient Safety Day and The Patient Pod aim for safer healthcare

Hope, healing and advocacy for safe health care.  Monday July 25th is Patient Safety Day.  It is a time to reflect on saving lives and reducing health care costs through elimination of preventable medical errors and harm.

Since 2001, Patient Safety Day has been observed by former patients, patient families, health care providers and consumer groups in as many as 41 states and several countries.  They pay tribute to those who work to improve the safety and quality of health care for future patients as well as in memory of  families who have lost their loved one, or their quality of life, due to medical errors and harm.  

Recently Charles Denham, M.D., Harvard Instructor, Mayo Clinic Adjunct Professor and Radiation Oncologist, was the recipient of the 2011 Florence Nightingale and Dr. E. Codman World Patient Safety Day Award.  

Dr. Denham was honored for devoting much of his career to patient safety and health care performance improvement bydeveloping and implementing a consensus model for identifying evidence-based safe practice standards and translation of standards of care into health care practice. 

Denham was chosen for leading national and global initiatives resulting in paradigm-shifting value-based health care pay-for-performance standards. Denham developed innovative strategies for including patient input, throughput and output into the methodology for laying the knowledge foundation for exploratory research that is expected to help improve patient outcomes.  

Denham developed the first patient-provider partnership panel of authors for collaborative review of national safe standards of care and practice, published in the National Quality Forum Safe Practices for Better Healthcare (2009). Dr. Denham is an outspoken advocate of health care performance improvement, safe standards and practices that chase zero preventable patient harm, value-based health care purchasing and reimbursement, and transparency in healthcare. He is the Editor-and-Chief of the Journal of Patient Safety.

The vision of safer health care and quality patient care is something East Greenwich based Pear Health, LLC Founder and CEO Pat Mastors shares. Mastors lost her father to a hospital acquired infection 5 years ago and has been diligently working to make positive lasting changes that can impact the lives of patients for years to come.  Mastors, whoin December of 2010 was one of a select group of patient advocates invited by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement to participate in its first-ever Leadership Summit for Patient Activists and Partners in Quality and Safety, has also lobbied successfully to pass two state laws improving patient safety.  She serves on the HAI reporting advisory committee for the Rhode Island Department of Health, and on the advisory board to the Small Business Development Center at Johnson & Wales University.

Mastors recently launched her premiere health amenity, The Patient Pod. It is a unique patient safety system that helps reduce HAI, lost patient items, and  patient falls while empowering the patient to be active in their own care. 

"Odds are each of us will one day be a hospital patient. I wish I could stop each of you in the hospital parking lot on your way in the door and impress upon you your responsibility, to your own health, to be proactive in keeping things clean. I wish you would insist that everyone who touches you uses proper hand hygiene. I hope the person cleaning your room will wipe down your tray table and bed rails with antiseptic, and clean your remote control. I’m sad to say there’s no guarantee", says Mastors.

The Patient Pod was developed by Fuzion Design, Inc in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Fuzion Design grew roots in the Ocean State when partners Joe Cacciola and Wayne Blatchley, who had crossed paths previously at Hasbro, joined forces to create a company where passion meets precision. 

"We are brand builders who work through every step of the process to develop exciting new products and ideas, to improve existing products, and to provide the finest in product development, package graphics, web design, logo design, and other creative endeavors", says VP Wayne Blatchley, “It’s not about thinking outside the box, it’s about the box.”

The Patient Pod comes stocked with Purell hand sanitizer and wipes.  "We are committed to saving lives through hand hygiene wellness solutions", says David Mackay, Vice President of Healthcare at GOJO, the makers of Purell.  "As a company that focuses on hand hygiene needs in health care settings and improving patient outcomes, we are pleased to be a part of The Patient Pod™. We believe the PURELL brand will be both familiar and comforting to patients. The Patient Pod™ is certainly aligned with our mission", adds Mackay.

A moment of silence and online candlelight vigil will be held Monday July 25th to mark the 11th annual World Patient Safety Day.