Emergency Medicine Patient Safety Foundation Promotes Patient Safety Awareness with Risk Assessment Findings.

AUBURN, Calif. -- The Emergency Medicine Patient Safety Foundation (EMPSF), a nonprofit foundation dedicated to improving patient safety in emergency medicine, promotes National Patient Safety Awareness Week, March 6-12, with publication of its preliminary emergency department patient safety risk assessment findings.

Sponsored by the National Patient Safety Foundation, the 2005 Patient Safety Awareness Week campaign focuses on effective communication between patients and healthcare providers. In today's overburdened emergency departments, effective communication is a fundamental factor in patient safety.

After performing 32 emergency department risk assessments, EMPSF identified several major factors effecting patient safety, including: policies and procedures; charting and documentation; patient satisfaction; group leadership and administration; loss prevention activities; interdepartmental support and ancillary services; communication; and facility provisions.

Forty percent of the risk factors found stemmed from policies and procedures, including admissions; discharges; patient handoffs; treatment guidelines; new hire orientation; staffing ratios; credentialing; federal Emergency Medicine Treatment and Active Labor Act regulations, and more. Additionally, charting and documentation systems accounted for 12 percent of patient safety factors identified in the EMPSF risk assessments.

In addition to performing risk assessments, EMPSF is developing patient safety and educational programs for physicians and patients and is building an emergency medicine resource directory. The Foundation also collects statistical data on patient safety, risk management, and claims in emergency medicine and is designing research studies to correlate the impact on medical malpractice claims and patient satisfaction. For more information on EMPSF, please visit www.empsf.org.