To recognize the efforts of clinicians and administrators around the world who are working to eliminate patient harm, and to raise awareness of patient safety issues among the general public, the National Patient Safety Foundation established Patient Safety Awareness Week. This annual event occurs in early March and this year falls on March 6 through 12. HRET, in partnership with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, is offering a range of tools and resources for engaging patients and raising awareness of patient safety. Resources include: “Be Prepared for Medical Appointments: Build Your Question List,” “Check Your Medicines: Tips for Using Medicines Safely,” and “Quick Tips When Talking with Your Doctor.” Many resources are available in both English and Spanish. Organizations can receive 500 copies of these tools free of charge, and individual clinicians can receive 200 free copies. Click here for more information and to order.

As health care costs continue to rise, so do employers’ costs to provide health insurance to their workers. Some hospital and health system leaders have started to carefully monitor returns on their investments in the well-being of their workers, and this monitoring has yielded information on the most effective approaches to improve employee health. This month’s Trustee magazine cover story, “Employee Wellness Proves Its Worth,” by Jan Greene, shares lessons learned by prominent hospital and health system leaders who have successfully promoted employee participation and implemented programs that have proven effective in improving health along a range of metrics. The article also shares findings of a recent survey conducted by the AHA Long Range Policy Committee on employee wellness programs as well as highlights of the recent report, A Call to Action: Creating a Culture of Health. Click here to read the article in Trustee.

The January 24 edition of The New Yorker features an article by HRET’s 2011 TRUST Award recipient, Atul Gawande, MD, MPH. In this must-read article, “The Hot Spotters,” Gawande tells the story of innovative work by clinicians in Camden, New Jersey to provide better quality care to high-acuity patients. Click here to access the article online. For more information about the TRUST Award, visit http://www.hret.org/, or contact Jennifer Shaw at jshaw@aha.org.

There is abundant evidence that variation in health care spending occurs not only geographically but within organizations. Dartmouth researchers estimate that as much as 30 percent of health care spending may be unnecessary. While certain types of spending variation are desirable, others are not. Understanding the difference between acceptable and unacceptable variation and factors within and beyond the control of health care systems to mitigate variation are key to designing initiatives to improve quality of care. The new Health Care Leader Action Guide: Understanding and Managing Variation helps hospitals to reduce inappropriate variation within their own organizations and in conjunction with care partners. The guide includes practical steps to understanding and managing variation and a list of best practices and case studies as resources for hospital leaders to use for implementing key interventions. Click here to learn more and to download the complete guide.

Medication errors continue to pose significant risks to patient safety. In coming weeks, the new 2011 ISMP Medication Safety Self Assessment for Hospitals® will be available. The assessment allows hospital teams to identify strengths and gaps in their current systems and pinpoint potential areas of improvement. The 2011 assessment builds on earlier questionnaires developed in 2000 and 2004 and includes questions on newly emerging issues such as drug shortages, physician engagement, and interchangeable IV tubing. The assessment was developed with support from The Commonwealth Fund by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices in partnership with AHA and HRET. Read more about the assessment in “Meeting New Challenges in Improving Medication Safety,” by Cynthia Hedges Greising in the February 24 edition of H&HN Daily.

The current 2011-2013 AHA Strategic Plan introduces Strategic Performance Commitments, commitments of national significance that AHA has made on behalf of hospitals. These commitments define accountability in the areas of patient safety, quality, and efficiency. Hospitals in Pursuit of Excellence, AHA’s platform for accelerating performance improvement and supporting health reform implementation, provides timely resources designed specifically to help hospitals and health systems to meet these new performance commitments. Click here for more information and to access these resources.

This month’s issue of Health Services Research features a special issue, Using State-Level Evidence to Inform National Policy: Research from the State Health Access Reform Evaluation (SHARE) Program. The SHARE initiative, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, examined state-level efforts to expand health insurance coverage in 29 states. This special issue features articles on the effects of policy changes on children’s preventive care, the impact of policy reform on enrollment in public coverage, the impact of state policies to expand dependent coverage on the health insurance status of young adults, and more. “In this new, post-ACA health policy environment, states are a vital driver of health implementation and will continue to be critically important to the success of reform,” writes Robert Wood Johnson Foundation director of health policy analysis Brian C. Quinn, PhD in his introduction to the special issue. “As researchers, funders, and policy makers begin to craft a research agenda to evaluate the impact of the ACA, special attention should be paid to the importance of state-level research.” For more information, visit http://www.hsr.org/.