The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a division of HHS, has partnered with other federal agencies and health systems to create a national safety alliance as part of broader commitments from the federal government to reduce preventable harm and improve care quality industrywide. [Beckers Clinical Leadership]

The alliance was among efforts shared at the White House Sept. 17 during a forum on patient safety hosted by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology — a working group of more than two dozen thought leaders in the academic, government and private sectors. AHRQ first shared the concept of a national safety alliance in 2023, with more details emerging at the forum. 

Eight things to know:

1. The National Action Alliance for Patient and Workforce Safety is a collective of federal agencies, heath systems, medical associations, policymakers and patient groups that will work together to apply evidence-based harm reduction strategies across all populations and settings, according to an AHRQ overview. The first area of focus will be hospital care settings.

2. The alliance will rely on a total-systems approach to safety improvement and align with the  National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety, which aims to reduce preventable harm by 50% by 2026. Participating systems will conduct a baseline safety assessment to identify priority areas for improvement. Through the alliance, they'll have access to implementation support, funding opportunities and other resources to support improvement efforts.  

3. On Nov. 1, the alliance will release an initial version of a dashboard to monitor the nation's progress toward eliminating preventable patient and workplace harms across all settings.

More> 

###