VHA Joins Partnership for Patients to Help Improve Patient Safety

VHA Inc. announced that it is one of the founding private-sector partners to join the HHS new Partnership for Patients initiative. VHA pledged to continue building on work already underway in many VHA member hospitals to achieve safe, high quality care that will improve patient safety.

VHA Increases Efforts To Address Patient Safety

"VHA is taking on patient safety from every vantage point -- from partnering at high levels with HHS and other national organizations, to piloting hands-on, hospital-based programs to help achieve zero hospital errors," said Michael Regier,

VHA's commitment to the Partnership includes its pledge to:

    * Support clinicians and staff working for and with VHA in order to make care safer, improve communication, and increase coordination by implementing proven systems and processes; and
    * Learn from and share with others VHA's experiences with making care safer and more coordinated.

The launch of the HHS initiative coincided with the announcement of a new regional VHA program, Target Zero, that is an intense, on-the-ground effort to achieve zero defects in patient care. Target Zero, co-sponsored with Healthcare Performance Improvement LLC, is focused in four states in the VHA Central region, with 12 hospitals participating in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio. The two-year project will include interactive meetings, educational seminars and individual coaching calls. As part of the effort, VHA will collect outcomes data, organize the education efforts and disseminate best practices across the participating hospitals.

"VHA is excited to see such a significant public-private collaboration at the national level that builds on the enormous amount of creative energy that hospitals are already directing toward patient safety," Regier said. "We look forward to helping the Partnership for Patients achieve its goals. Nothing in health care is more important than delivering safe, high-quality care."

About VHA
VHA Inc., based in Irving, Texas, is a national network of not-for-profit health care organizations that work together to drive maximum savings in the supply chain arena, set new levels of clinical performance and identify and implement best practices to improve operational efficiency and clinical outcomes. In 2009, VHA delivered record savings and value of $1.47 billion to members.