Patient Safety Week


March 3-9 is the national observance of Patient Safety Awareness Week. The goal is simple: improving patient safety. But the journey is anything but simple. The New Jersey Hospital Association and its members work 365 days a year to constantly improve the quality and safety of the care they provide to the people of our state. Those efforts have yielded tremendous results, but there's always more work to be done. NJHA's Institute for Quality and Patient Safety invites healthcare providers and consumers to join us in this ongoing quest for better, safer healthcare.

Five Reasons to Celebrate Patient Safety in New Jersey

  1. All of New Jersey's acute care hospitals have joined the national Partnership for Patients effort dedicated to quality healthcare. NJHA has been selected to lead this effort in New Jersey in one of 26 "hospital engagement networks" nationwide.
  2. New Jersey hospitals are working for healthier full-term babies; 51 hospitals with maternity services have implemented policies to eliminate early elective deliveries and allow nature to "take its course."
  3. New Jersey hospitals have made great strides in reducing pneumonia associated with patients on ventilators. Twenty N.J. hospitals have gone at least six months straight without a single case of ventilator-associated pneumonia.
  4. New Jersey hospitals improve their performance each year according to quality results in the Department of Health's Hospital Performance Report. Out of 25 measures, N.J. hospitals exceeded national scores on 15 and were equal to national norms on eight.
  5. New Jersey healthcare providers rank 9th nationwide in the overall quality of healthcare services they deliver, according to data from the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Consumers are key partners in healthcare quality and patient safety. Be prepared and engaged with resources from NJHA, available in English and Spanish.