'Beyond Blame': Veterans Health Administration Teams with Bridge Medical to Improve Patient Safety.

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SOLANA BEACH, Calif. & WASHINGTON, D.C.--(BW HealthWire)--Sept. 5, 2001

VA's National Center for Patient Safety Incorporates

Award-Winning Bridge Medical Video in Employee Training to Help

'Create a Culture of Safety' at 163 VA Hospitals Nationwide

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today announced that it will feature Bridge Medical's "Beyond Blame" video in its recently revamped training program for new hospital employees.

The ten-minute, award-winning documentary deals with an issue generating heat among health care providers, payors, purchasers, consumers and regulators: medical errors. "The video will be shown to thousands of new hires at 163 VA hospitals serving close to four million patients nationwide," said VA National Center for Patient Safety (NCPS) Director James Bagian, MD, PE.

NCPS is responsible for this and numerous other quality improvement initiatives throughout VA. A leading health information technology firm headquartered in Solana Beach, Calif., Bridge Medical, Inc., has pioneered the use of barcode technology for the medical industry through its Bridge MedPoint(TM) patient safety system.

"'Beyond Blame' is gripping," noted Bagian. "It will help our trainers demonstrate the importance of patient safety to both patients and clinicians. Showing it at the beginning of each new-hire training session creates 'a teachable moment' that dramatizes the issue of patient safety." The video will be incorporated in VA's 45-minute patient safety training video.

Added Bridge President and CEO John Grotting: "We applaud VA for recognizing that improving patient safety begins with education, and taking the initiative to educate their employees on these issues from Day 1. Their program is a perfect example of how proactive management can remove the onus of blame and create a 'culture of safety' that gives our veterans the quality care they deserve."

"'Beyond Blame' features three gripping case histories," explained Bagian. "It tells the stories of a pharmacist, a nurse and a physician who have each been involved in a fatal medication administration error. It shows in dramatic fashion why patient safety is the job of everyone in the hospital. We are using the video to help new employees understand, in a visceral way, their role in preventing potentially deadly medication errors."

'Beyond Blame' premiered at a 1997 American Society of Health-System Pharmacists meeting, and won the Institute for Safe Medication Practices' "Cheers Award" in 1998. Since then, more than 12,000 copies have been distributed to health care professionals and others interested in preventing medication errors.

"We produced this video to tell the industry how important it is to focus on improving processes, rather than blaming health care professionals," noted Grotting. "Physicians, nurses, and other hospital employees are under tremendous pressure. And after all, as the Institute of Medicine said in its now famous 1999 report: 'To Err is Human.'

"VA has been very successful in making lifesaving quality improvements. One reason for this is that they have banned the word 'blame' from their lexicon. Instead of blaming people, VA, like Bridge Medical, is using technology and process improvement to help hospital personnel eliminate medical errors. After all, when there's no need for error, there's no need for blame."

About the Veterans Health Administration

America's largest integrated healthcare system, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), part of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C. (www.va.gov), has a $20 billion operating budget and serves an enrolled patient population of more than 5 million veterans. More than 180,000 full-time VHA employees work at more than 1,300 sites, including 163 hospitals. The largest provider of graduate medical education and one of the largest medical research organizations in the U.S., VHA provides backup to the Department of Defense and the National Disaster Medical System.

VHA has taken the lead in improving the quality of care in many health care areas, including patient safety, computerized patient records, telehealth, surgical quality assessment, rehabilitation, mental health care, and clinical and health services research. VA's National Center for Patient Safety (http://www.patientsafety.gov) embodies VHA's uncompromising commitment to reducing and preventing adverse medical events while enhancing the care given patients. NCPS represents a unified and cohesive patient safety program, with active participation by all 163 VA hospitals supported by dedicated patient safety managers.

NCPS -- and Bagian -- are nationally known for their success in improving the quality of care for American veterans. Unique in healthcare; the NCPS program focuses on prevention not punishment, applying human factor analysis and the safety research of high-reliability organizations (such as aerospace and nuclear power) targeted at identifying and eliminating system vulnerabilities.

About Bridge Medical

Founded in 1996 and headquartered in Solana Beach, Calif., Bridge Medical, Inc. (www.bridgemedical.com), helps health care providers eliminate medication errors, reduce adverse drug events and improve medication therapy outcomes via its Bridge MedPoint(TM) patient safety system. MedPoint provides safety checks for medication administration, blood transfusion verification and specimen tracking, thus helping hospitals intercept errors and eliminate the process flaws that are the root causes of medication and identification errors.

For information about continuing education programs focusing on patient safety, or Bridge's award-winning "Beyond Blame" documentary, visit www.mederrors.com.

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