ECRI Names Monument Health Winner of 2022 Safety Excellence Award

PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA—ECRI, the nation’s largest nonprofit patient safety organization, names Monument Health of Rapid City, SD, winner of the 2022 Safety Excellence Award. Monument Health is recognized for exceeding organization-wide safety goals of reducing harm and errors by improving culture of safety and event reporting.

The Safety Excellence Award recognizes a member of the joint ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) PSO for outstanding patient safety efforts and initiatives. Monument Health’s winning submission was selected based on a blinded panel review of four key criteria: impact, culture of safety, scale, and innovation.

“We applaud Monument Health for advancing patient safety through increased reporting and other process improvements,” says Dheerendra Kommala, MD, chief medical officer, ECRI. “Their success is notable because it comes amidst the backdrop of a global pandemic that has been especially difficult for most healthcare safety teams.”

Monument Health, a community-based health system, set a strategic goal to improve culture of safety, increase incident and near miss event reporting, and increase and enrich discussions about safety throughout the organization. Their efforts, which included implementation of a multi-prong Safety Culture program of tiered huddles, good catch reporting, Just Culture, and patient safety coaches, resulted in a 334% increase of near-miss reporting.

“This award is a product of Monument Health’s ongoing commitment to excellence in safety and quality at all levels,” says Merissa Cook, Monument Health’s director of quality, safety and risk management. “Our caregivers and physicians have worked to deliver care that is transparent, patient-centered and physician- and caregiver-driven and to continuously improve how we serve our communities.”

Monument Health, a member of the ECRI and the ISMP PSO, credits monthly meetings, event data analysis, and educational webinars and workshops as contributing factors to their overall success. ECRI’s Root Cause Analysis-in-Action: Building Foundations workshop helped Monument Health develop investigational processes that were free from bias and taught them how to solve failures at a sustainable systems level versus at an individual level.

Throughout their multi-year initiative, Monument Health used ECRI’s Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns report to support their strategy for prospective risk assessments and ISMP’s best practice recommendations to review serious safety event investigations related to medication safety.

The 2022 Safety Excellence Award ceremony took place at the ECRI and the ISMP PSO’s Annual Meeting, held virtually on November 2, 2022.

Two organizations received honorable mentions:

Carilion Clinic, Roanoke, VA | Created a new tool for use during the development of interventions associated with a patient safety event

St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center, Sioux City, IA | Improved overall program and management of the catheter-associated urinary tract infection prevention bundle

The joint ECRI and the ISMP PSO maintains the largest patient safety reporting and learning system—collecting and analyzing more than five million patient safety events across 90 percent of the United States. To learn more about ECRI and the ISMP PSO, or the Safety Excellence Award, visit www.ecri.org/pso, call (610) 825-6000, or e-mail clientservices@ecri.org.

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CONGRATS @_monumenthealth wins @ECRI_org @ISMP_Org 2022 Safety Excellence Award for improvements in culture of safety & event reporting #PSO

About ECRI

ECRI is an independent, nonprofit organization improving the safety, quality, and cost-effectiveness of care across all healthcare settings. With a focus on patient safety, evidence-based medicine, and health technology decision solutions, ECRI is respected and trusted by healthcare leaders and agencies worldwide. Over the past fifty years, ECRI has built its reputation on integrity and disciplined rigor, with an unwavering commitment to independence and strict conflict-of-interest rules. ECRI is the only organization worldwide to conduct independent medical device evaluations, with labs located in North America and Asia Pacific. ECRI is designated an Evidence-based Practice Center by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO is a federally certified Patient Safety Organization as designated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) formally became an ECRI Affiliate in 2020. Marcus Schabacker, MD, PhD, President and CEO of ECRI, has been recognized by the Philadelphia Business Journal as a Healthcare Leader in 2021. Visit www.ecri.org and follow @ECRI_Org on Twitter.

About the Institute for Safe Medication Practices

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) is the only 501c (3) nonprofit organization devoted entirely to preventing medication errors. ISMP is known and respected as the gold standard for medication safety information. For more than 25 years, it also has served as a vital force for progress. ISMP’s advocacy work alone has resulted in numerous necessary changes in clinical practice, public policy, and drug labeling and packaging. Among its many initiatives, ISMP runs the only national voluntary practitioner medication error reporting program, publishes newsletters with real-time error information read and trusted throughout the global healthcare community, and offers a wide range of unique educational programs, tools, and guidelines. In 2020, ISMP formally affiliated with ECRI, and ECRI and the ISMP PSO is a federally certified Patient Safety Organization by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. As a watchdog organization, ISMP receives no advertising revenue and depends entirely on charitable donations, educational grants, newsletter subscriptions, and volunteer efforts to pursue its life-saving work. Visit www.ismp.org and follow @ismp_org.

About Monument Health

Headquartered in Rapid City, SD, Monument Health is a community-based health care system with a mission to make a difference, every day. The system offers care in 31 medical specialties and serves 14 communities across western South Dakota and in eastern Wyoming. With over 5,000 physicians and caregivers, Monument Health is composed of 5 hospitals and 40 medical clinics and specialty centers. Monument Health is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network. Visit https://monument.health/

Visit www.ecri.org and follow @ECRI_Org

For more information, contact:
Laurie Menyo, Director of Strategic Communications
610.825.6000 ext. 5310
lmenyo@ecri.org