Hospital Campaign Saves Thousands of Lives

A national campaign to reduce lethal errors in U.S. hospitals may have saved as many as 122,300 lives in the past 18 months, according to the findings of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI, Cambridge, MA, USA).

The campaign started in December 2004, with the challenge of saving 100,000 lives. June 14, 2006, was designated as the deadline to sign up at least 2,000 U.S. hospitals in the effort to implement six types of changes in patient care. To date, 3,100 hospitals, far surpassing the original goal, have signed up for the "100K lives” campaign, representing about 75% of the nation's acute-care beds, and are sharing mortality data and carrying out study-tested procedures that prevent infections and mistakes.

Dr. Donald Berwick, a Harvard professor and president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, who organized the campaign, challenged health-care leaders to improve care quality and prevent mistakes by implementing six types of changes in the hospital. Roughly a third of the hospitals said they were implementing all six measures, and more than half committed to at least three. The campaign results were presented at IHI's annual International Summit on Redesigning Hospital Care, held in June 2006 in Atlanta (GA, USA).

The six changes proposed by IHI are: activating rapid response teams, preventing patients of dying from heart attacks by delivering evidence-based care, preventing medication errors, preventing patients who are receiving central-line medication and fluids from developing infections, preventing patients undergoing surgery from developing infections, and preventing patients on ventilators from developing pneumonia. Each of these changes has a recommended protocol of steps the hospitals should follow.

"We in health care have never seen or experienced anything like this,” said Dennis O'Leary, president of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of U.S. healthcare organizations.

The IHI is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the improvement of health care throughout the world. The "100K lives” campaign is endorsed by U.S. federal health officials, health insurers, hospital industry leaders, and the American Medical Association (AMA).



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Institute for Healthcare Improvement