Safer Healthcare Now! celebrates 5th anniversary

'the largest healthcare improvement effort in Canadian history'

TORONTO, April 12 /CNW/ - Since its inception in 2005, Safer Healthcare Now! has enrolled over 1150 teams representing more than 330 healthcare organizations across Canada. These teams are making a measureable difference in reducing adverse events and making healthcare safer for Canadians by implementing the Safer Healthcare Now! interventions.

Safer Healthcare Now! was initially launched in April 2005, with six interventions to reduce death and injury to patients in acute-care settings. It has now grown to twelve interventions that have spread beyond acute-care settings to long term care and community healthcare settings.

One of the partnerships the Canadian Patient Safety Institute has formed through Safer Healthcare Now! is with Dr. Michael Gardam and the University Health Network to battle superbugs through implementation of Positive Deviance to healthcare organizations across Canada to help reduce healthcare associated infections.

"Controlling the spread of superbugs in our healthcare facilities is a complex problem, but one I feel we can have a big impact on through our partnership with Safer Healthcare Now!," says Dr. Gardam, Controlling Super Bugs Intervention Lead, Director at the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion. "Our work with positive deviance to date suggests that it is a powerful new tool that will help bring about the culture change in healthcare that our patients need."

"Our primary goal with Safer Healthcare Now! is to spread evidence-based safety initiatives into every relevant healthcare organization in Canada," says Hugh MacLeod, CEO, Canadian Patient Safety Institute. "Dr. Michael Gardam's work on the Safer Healthcare Now! controlling superbugs intervention is a great example of this work."

As Safer Healthcare Now! celebrates five years of making healthcare safer for Canadians, the Canadian Patient Safety Institute is proud of the partnerships we have formed that has helped to enable the work of teams to reduce preventable harm and death for patients accessing our healthcare system.

For more information visit www.saferhealthcarenow.ca

For further information: For media inquiries, please contact: Canadian Patient Safety Institute; Cecilia Bloxom, Director of Communications, [phone], [email protected]