: The central purpose of the Fifth Annual Patient Safety Consortium (PSC) conference is to bring together hospital representatives and other members of the PSC to inspire their continued efforts to improve patient safety and commitment to participation in research and intervention activities. The PSC includes a consortium of over 150 active and alumni hospitals and health networks that participate in our patient safety research program examining safety culture and outcomes in hospitals, and also includes colleagues from institutions and organizations dedicated to improving patient safety and advancing patient safety research. This program is led by researchers at the Center for Health Policy/Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research (CHP/PCOR) at Stanford University. Working toward the overall goal, the conference has several key aims. We will disseminate and obtain valuable feedback about research findings from ongoing research projects involving the PSC, particularly focusing on updates for project findings generated in the PSC as part of the current AHRQ-funded project """"""""Improving Safety Culture and Outcomes in Healthcare"""""""" (RO1 HSO13920). We will also include presentations and opportunities for cross institutional learning about new patient safety related information and practices. Throughout, we will provide opportunities for identification of areas of mutual interest and opportunities for hospital collaboration. The PSC annual meeting is a vital piece of our research program and strengthens the quality of our work substantially. No funding was provided through our AHRQ RO1 to support the annual meeting. A small grant for conference support from AHRQ would provide funding for Consortium hospitals to travel to and attend the annual Consortium meeting. First, we will provide funding for speakers to travel to and attend the meeting. Second, subsidies will be provided for hospitals participating in our current project that would otherwise be unable to attend due to financial constraints. Finally, we will provide funding to defray travel and lodging expenses for the 24 intervention hospitals. These intervention hospitals will play a key role in disseminating information about the intervention to the other hospitals during the meeting. The meeting will take place at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from August 21-22, 2006. Recent expansions in the PSC have made it both increasingly important and increasingly difficult to gather participants together, and the requested support would provide resources crucial to a successful meeting that would help sustain current and foster future patient-safety improving Consortium activities.
