Relevance:The Georgia Hospital Association: Patient Safety Improvement Corps (GHA:PSIC) was designed with the assistance of safety experts, researchers and end users. It is intended to address a major health service issue-patient safety. By providing health care workers with safety improvement knowledge and skills, it is expected that for 50 participating hospitals, the care of approximately 313,550 patients can be positively impacted in a single year. Project Summary: The idea of developing the GHA:PSIC program grew out of GHAREF's participation on the Georgia team of the 2004-2005 """"""""PSIC: An AHRQ/VA Partnership."""""""" In 2006 there will be 5 2-day face-to-face educational programs, 8 Webinars, 2 site visits to """"""""best practices"""""""" organizations, and 4 networking audio conferences. Participants will also conduct a quality improvement/patient safety project. Speakers will be asked to present general information and the latest research findings on: the principles of patient safety; human factors engineering; mistake proofing; organizational culture of safety; implementing change; medical errors reporting; data analysis; evaluating the effectiveness of patient safety programs; medical and legal issues such as confidentiality and public reporting; and patient safety and quality improvement tools, including information regarding evidence based care. Train the trainer tools will be developed to equip participants with the knowledge and resources to go back to their organizations, train additional staff, and implement patient safety improvement programs.This data will be used to select and monitor improvement for their project to be conducted during the program. The program is designed for hospital and health system staff with major responsibility in patient safety. Evaluations will occur at the end of each education session and the entire program. Participants will receive their hospital's performance data related to outcomes, evidence based processes, and average cost of services. Information will be disseminated nationally and statewide through articles, presentations, and materials placed on the web. ? ? ? ?
