Danish Safer Hospital Programme
TrygFonden, Danish Regions and the Danish Society for Patient Safety are working together on the Danish Safer Hospital Programme 2010-2013 with expert assistance from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, IHI.
The Danish Safer Hospital Programme is designed to prevent inadvertent errors, injuries and deaths. The aims are to achieve 15 % reduction in mortality and 30 % reduction in harm, by ie. reducing the number of cardiac arrests, eliminating hospital infections, reducing pressure ulcers and preventing medication errors. The results are shared and disseminated to be an inspiration for the country's other hospitals.
Workstreams
The programme has five Workstreams, each consisting of a number of bundles or "packages". The five Workstreams are:
Critical Care
Perioperative Care
Leadership
Medicines Management
General Ward
Lessons from the Operation Life campaign
The Danish Safer Hospital Programmes aim is to reduce mortality by 15 % in it's selected hospitals, which is also by international standards, a high and ambitious goal. This goal has been decided upon using lessons from international experiences and the Operation Life campaign 2007-2009. The analysis of mortality in the campaign Operation Life showed that there is great potential for improvements in patient safety.
Measurement
The Danish Safer Hospital Programme introduces a systematic and sequenced approach for health professionals to incorporate measurement and data to track whether safe, quality care is provided. Real time data will be used to identify opportunities for improvement and motivate caregivers to make rapid changes in order to track these improvements.
Exemplar sites
Five hospitals participate in The Danish Safer Hospital Programme as eksemplar sites. Positive results at the exemplar sites will be spread by an active effort to hospitals in the rest the country.
All hospitals in Denmark are working on many fronts to improve safety and quality of care, including the hospitals not included in the project. For example, all Danish hospitals are working on the introduction of the Danish Quality Model, which is purposefully designed to ensure high standards across all areas of hospital care.
Best practice
The contents of the Danish Safer Hospital Programme correspond with recognized and accepted best practices. The project does not intend to teach new clinical knowledge but rather promote agreed upon knowledge in quality improvement.
