Chasing Zero: Can Reality Meet the Rhetoric?

Charles R. Denham, MD; Peter Angood, MD, Don Berwick, MD, MPP, Leah Binder, MA, MGA, Carolyn M. Clancy, MD, Janet M. Corrigan, PhD, MBA, and David Hunt, MD, FACS

Healthcare-Associated Infections (HAI) are a daunting problem. Despite the advances in Patient Safety, HAI's have moved from the eighth leading cause of death to the third. Healthcare leaders from quality, purchasing, and certifying sectors convened at a national leadership meeting to address the issue of HAI's. The meeting was deemed "The Quality Choir: A Call to Action for Hospital Executives." The team concluded that every hospital leader must re-evaluate the strategy, structure, and function of their infection control and prevention services toward a goal of zero HAI's.

"Can the reality meet the rhetoric - can we really get to zero healthcare-associated infections? What is their perspective on the power of harmonization (the synchronization of the specifications of measures, standards, and practices down to the detailed level)? Is it a catalyst to performance improvement?" These are the questions that the committee addressed at the summit. Leaders from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the Leapfrog Group, and the Joint Commission have established a call for action for every hospital CEO to join forces and establish a Chasing Zero Department (CZD) in their facilities.

TMIT will be launching an initiative to help design the necessary structures for CZD's throughout 2010. For more information on this initiative, go to www.safetyleaders.org. Watch the webcam on "Chasing Zero: Winning the War on Healthcare Harm" as Dennis Quaid and other families share their stories of medical errors and efforts to improve patient safety.

A Roundtable discussion, "Chasing Zero: Behind the Scenes" with individuals in the documentary is scheduled on Thursday, May 20th through the Librarians and Patient Safety website. Log on to libptsafety.ning.com and register to participate.

~ Denise

An article from the Journal of Patient Safety, Volume 5, Number 4, December 2009