Press Releases: National
April 18 , 2005
Kaiser Permanente Hosts Conference Focused on Perinatal Patient Safety
Harvard School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Quality and Safety Research Group, Stanford University send featured speakers
San Francisco, Calif. – Focusing on the safe and healthy birth of children borne by higher-risk mothers, Kaiser Permanente will host a patient safety conference April 21 st and 22 nd in San Francisco intended to share best practices among other health experts.
- Michael Leonard, MD, a nationally known speaker on patient safety programs, will address "The Next Generation" of human factors that need to be addressed on the first day of the conference.
- Steve Howard, MD, Associate Director of Patient Safety at the VA’s Palo Alto Health Care System and an Associate Professor at Stanford University , will speak on Fatigue Management on day two.
- Michelle M. Mello, J.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Law at the Harvard School of Public Health, will show how health care organizations learn from legal issues when she presents insights from the Malpractice Insurers Medical Error Prevention Study.
Kaiser Permanente’s patient safety work can be traced to the health plan’s beginnings as a preventive care plan for shipyard and construction workers, and includes the involvement of former Health Plan President and CEO Dr. David Lawrence in the Institute of Medicine ’s groundbreaking study, "To Err is Human."
Perinatal patient safety focuses on the hours around birth, ensuring that the team of clinical professionals caring for an expectant mother is prepared to act cohesively and decisively together in the case of an emergency. One mother says she knew something had changed during the birth of her child when her team of Kaiser Permanente physicians and nurses immediately coalesced and began focusing on her child in a coordinated, urgent way that had clearly been practiced and perfected.
The training Kaiser Permanente clinicians go through includes using high-tech robotic humans—mother, father, and child—to simulate emergencies. The robots are programmed to generate simulated crisis situations, and humans provide voices that mimic the agitation and confusion felt by family during a birth emergency. Paul Preston, MD, physician in charge of KP’s PPS training, says "the training can feel very real to the doctors and nurses going through it. That experience means Kaiser Permanente birthing teams can learn how to react with calm and precision in emergencies without having to learn on real people."
A key part of patient safety training at KP is a technique adapted from the [U.S. Navy] called "SBAR" training; SBAR stands for Situation, Background, Assessment, Recommendation and is a model for communication in emergencies that can prevent misunderstanding between members of a team. Dr. Leonard will address SBAR training on the first day of the conference.
About Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America’s leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, our mission is to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve 8.6 million members in nine states and the District of Columbia. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal physicians, specialists and team of caregivers. Our expert and caring medical teams are empowered and supported by industry-leading technology advances and tools for health promotion, disease prevention, state-of-the art care delivery and world-class chronic disease management. Kaiser Permanente is dedicated to care innovations, clinical research, health education and the support of community health. For more information, go to: www.kp.org/newscenter.
