VHA Foundation Launches National CEO Patient SafetyNetwork, Starting From the Top to Make Pati...(ongly agree that they can confidently sp...),Health

about a patient safety event.

-- 70 percent agree that consumer concerns about safety in hospitals are

justified.

Health Care SafetyNetwork Design

To date, very few patient safety education programs have been focused on educating the CEO, and none are specifically designed to deal with their intense time demands and unique learning styles. The survey revealed that CEOs feel that direct interaction with peers is the most useful source for new patient safety knowledge and skills. Based on these findings, the Health Care SafetyNetwork is designed to offer CEOs unprecedented access to peers and national safety experts through face-to-face, facilitated and virtual networking opportunities.

The program will also offer CEOs across the industry with an online database of leading practices and relevant content on safety issues. This will include case studies that will focus on the real life experiences of their peers in dealing with patient safety issues such as sentinel events, managing challenging physicians and building a culture of safety.

"The professional development path for senior health care leaders generally takes decades, but when it comes to improving patient safety, hospitals can't wait that long, and neither can patients," said Linda DeWolf, President of the Foundation. "The VHA Foundation is leveraging its long history of improving patient care at the national level by offering this program to rapidly transform hospital leaders into confident safety leaders."

To learn more about the Health Care SafetyNetwork visit http://www.vhafoundation.org.

Survey Methodology

This survey was fielded online from January to March 2008 by Market Strategies International. The sample size for the survey was 301 hospital CEOs across the country. The margin of error is +/- 5 percen
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