Franklin Square Receives Grant to Improve Patient Safety 07/12/2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Ming Tai Manager, Public Relations Franklin Square Hospital Center 443-777-7483 or ming.tai@medstar.net July 12, 2011 (Baltimore, MD)—Franklin Square Hospital Center is one of 39 healthcare organizations nationwide to be awarded grant funding by the Cardinal Health Foundation to improve patient safety. The Cardinal Health E3 Grant Program awarded funding ranging from $10,000 to $42,000 and totaling $1.2 million to support projects aimed at improving the effectiveness, efficiency and excellence of patient care. For the second consecutive year, the program specifically encouraged providers to submit funding requests for programs that seek to improve medication management or operating room (OR) safety. Franklin Square’s project is aimed at improving the communication skills of the entire OR team through the implementation of the TeamStepps program, a training system developed by the Department of Defense and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, according to Regina W. Straw, RN, education specialist for the Surgical Service Line at Franklin Square. “It is anticipated that implementation will impact our baseline rates of a consistently led checklist, improve communication and teamwork skills, reduce the number of specimen errors and ultimately improve patient safety,” she explains, adding that the improved communication may also decrease turnover rates. The grant will support all three phases of the project: a site assessment phase (started in May), a training phase and a monitoring phase.

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