The Colorado Patient Safety Coalition^'s annual Patient Safety Awards are given to individuals, groups or organizations whose patient safety projects have demonstrated leadership and innovation in improving patient safety within Colorado. Consideration for an award is based upon specific activities that establish an individual, group or organization as a leader in safe patient practices

Colorado Health and Hospital Association Improvement Task Force

The Colorado Health and Hospital Association Performance and Quality Group is nominated for developing and releasing hospital specific risk-adjusted mortality information for all full service hospitals in Colorado. Twelve health care, business, and governmental organizations participated in this effort to compile information on twelve of the Inpatient Quality Indicators developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Memorial Hospital of Colorado Springs Safety Initiatives
Memorial Hospital of Colorado Springs is nominated for its array of excellent projects, spanning the spectrum of clinical, research, and building construction projects. Establishing such a culture of patient safety demonstrated dedicated inspiration and commitment from the very top of the organization as well as outstanding employee performance.

HealthONE Swedish Medical Center Cardiac Alert ProjectHealthONE Swedish Medical Center is nominated for the Cardiac Alert to Cath Lab Direct: tools for improvement project. Over a sustained period of 2 and a quarter years, this collaborative team of clinicians and managers implemented a continuous quality improvement process to enhance patient safety for emergency cardiac patients with very substantial reduction in door-­to-open vessel times.

Denver Health Hand Hygiene Innovation
Denver Health is nominated for its Improving, Hand Hygiene at Denver Health: a Multimodal Intervention. Using creativity, humor, strong educational interventions, and a multidisciplinary approach, this team substantially improved compliance with hand hygiene standards among health care workers. By bringing together experts from such diverse departments as hospital and community-based Infection Control, Patient Safety and Quality, Denver Public Health, Public Relations and Marketing, and Executive Staff, this project has changed the institutional culture.

St. Mary's, Grand Junction Transport Collaborative

St Mary's Hospital, Grand Junction conducted a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) on Transports of Critical Care Patients to/from the Radiology Department, in which a broadly collaborative team prospectively mapped all steps of the process and all potential error opportunities. This activity anticipated the need to assure the safety of patients in transition and while outside of the critical care unit

"As I remember Mama...^"
Georgina Schaff nominated her book "As I Remember Mama: Denied the Right to Die with Dignity or Legally Crucified," in which she describes her mother's terminal illness and the difficulty she encountered with the informed consent process as well as the lack of hospital adherence to her mother's wishes as stated in her advance directives.

Individual Awards---Each year the Colorado Patient Safety Coalition recognizes outstanding individual contributions to patient safety. This year we are pleased to recognize two outstanding Coloradoans who have influenced the direction and success of the national patient safety movement.

Dean Ed Dauer, LLB, MPH, has leveraged his expertise as a legal scholar and educator along with his public health policy wisdom to develop alternative dispute techniques for the resolution of medical tort claims. In doing so, he has helped countless injured patients and their families heal. He has not only implemented successful mediation strategies, but he has also sponsored legislation, first in Colorado and now in many states to facilitate disclosure conversations between hospitals and health care personnel on the one hand and patients and families on the other. His work has touched many lives.
 

Dr. Michael Leonard, Chief of Surgical and Anesthesia Services at Colorado Kaiser Permanents and director of the national KP patient safety initiative. Among other innovations, Michael has brought unusual gifts and compassion to his work of applying and teaching others, from the field of aviation and crew resource management techniques in order to improve safety in the most complex of medical and surgical settings. His work is widely acknowledged as revolutionary. He also has touched many lives.