Patient Safety

Quality patient care goes far beyond clinical care. In addition to extensive work on clinical areas of patient safety, Stratis Health works on organizational and community change management that improves patient safety.

Adverse Health Events Reporting Initiative

The Minnesota Department of Health contracts with Stratis Health to perform review and analysis of root cause analysis (RCA) and corrective action plans (CAP) documentation submitted to the Minnesota adverse event reporting system by hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, and regional treatment centers. We review each reported event to assess that the facility submits a sufficient summary of the event and a complete RCA, and that the CAP is appropriate and reflective of the root causes. We provide individual facility feedback to promote system level improvement and facilitate learning within and across facilities, as well as training to improve safety across the state.

National Patient Safety Quality Improvement Organization Support Center

Stratis Health and the Oklahoma Foundation for Medical Quality (OFMQ) jointly serve as the national Patient Safety Quality Improvement Organization Support Center. Together we develop and offer tools, resources, training, and support for QIOs nationally to work with hospitals and nursing homes on such clinical areas as pressure ulcers and physical restraints, and in organizational leadership and team building.

Culture change/patient-centered care in nursing homes

Working with state leaders and a statewide coalition of providers and partners, Stratis Health is at the forefront of a movement to encourage a shift in nursing homes from the traditional institutional model of care to a person-centered care model, including convening the Minnesota Culture Change Coalition.

Cultural competency

Cultural competency is the ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures. Evidence shows that racial and ethnic minorities tend to receive a lower quality of health care than non-minorities—even when factors related to access, such as patient insurance and income, are controlled. Health care providers across Minnesota are now providing care to an increasingly more diverse patient population that may not speak English, may not be familiar with Western medical customs, and may be distrustful of the American way of delivering health care.

Stratis Health has a long record of success in reducing health disparities among communities of color and underserved populations. Our disparities reduction efforts include projects with specific populations and targeted clinical conditions, improving health literacy throughout the community, and increasing the cultural competency and effectiveness of health care providers serving culturally diverse populations.

Medicare Quality Improvement Organization

In carrying out the requirements of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) National Patient Safety Initiative, Stratis Health provides training, clinical improvement technical assistance, organization leadership assessment, and culture change support designed to address areas of patient harm for which evidence indicates achievable safety improvements through enhancing health care processes and systems.

This builds on Stratis Health’s previous work in the areas of surgical care, heart failure, pressure ulcers and restraints in nursing homes, and drug safety; as well as applies our knowledge to the new areas of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), pressure ulcer prevention in hospitals, and technical assistance for select nursing homes.

Aligning with the priorities of the Minnesota Alliance for Patient Safety and Minnesota’s Adverse Health Event Reporting Law, Stratis Health’s QIO improvement efforts will advance patient safety in Minnesota. The following patient safety activities are included in our current QIO contract:

• Improving care for Minnesotans
• Reducing MRSA infection rates
• Reducing rates of pressure ulcers in nursing homes
• Reducing rates of use of physical restraints in nursing homes
• Improving inpatient surgical safety and heart failure treatment in hospitals
• Improving drug safety
• Providing quality improvement technical assistance to select nursing homes

Minnesota Alliance for Patient Safety

Stratis Health is proud to be a founding member of the Minnesota Alliance for Patient Safety (MAPS). This private and public partnership promotes optimum patient safety through collaborative and supportive efforts among all participants of the health care system in Minnesota.

Contact Stratis Health for assistance with your quality improvement and patient safety needs.

If your organization has projects it would like to work on, contact us to discuss how we can work together to support initiatives related to patient safety.