Parrish Medical Center Recognized at World Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit

BREVARD COUNTY, FLA (March 6, 2018)—A world conference held in London, England on patient safety, science and technology recognized Parrish Medical Center (PMC) as the world’s first hospital to commit to a series of lifesaving patient safety goals and presented a humanitarian award to the PMC official leading the hospital’s work on the safety project.

The Patient Safety Movement Foundation’s 6th annual World Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit, co-convened by the European Society of Anesthesiology, took place Feb. 23 – 25 in central London with healthcare practitioners and industry members attending from at least 25 countries.

PMC was recognized as the world’s first hospital to earn the Patient Safety Movement Foundation’s 5-Star Hospital Ranking which acknowledges PMC for implementing the Foundation’s 13 Actionable Patient Safety Solutions (APSS). The Patient Safety Movement seeks by 2020 to eliminate preventable hospital errors, thereby saving an estimated 1,000 lives every day in U.S. hospitals.

Edwin Loftin, PMC’s senior vice president of Integrated and Acute Care Services and chief nursing officer, received one of two humanitarian awards presented by the Foundation for his work at PMC in implementing the APSS. The conference’s other humanitarian award was presented to Rt. Hon. Jeremy Hunt, a member of the British House of Commons and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

“These are events of great pride and even more satisfaction for PMC’s 1,300 care partners,” said George Mikitarian, PMC president and chief executive officer.

“Pride in that their efforts have once again merited international recognition, and even greater satisfaction in making patient safety a lifesaving, care-improving, priority within PMC’s mission of healing experiences for everyone all the time.”

Joe Kiani, Patient Safety Movement Foundation founder, said at the London presentation that the staff was taken aback when PMC first announced its intention to meet all Actionable Patient Safety Solutions.

“Parrish made so many commitments to implement processes that were proven to reduce medical error that our staff believed it was an error,” Kiani said. “However, when we spoke with Edwin, his response was “Why wouldn’t we make all these commitments?”

Kiani visited PMC in January 2018 to personally present the 5-Star Hospital Ranking Award to PMC’s board of directors, administration, and care partners. During his visit he also used Twitter to commend PMC and said, “We can get to zero (preventable hospital errors) worldwide if every hospital plans for zero by implementing all of the processes.”

PMC has in recent years been named Florida’s safest hospital by Consumer Reports; by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as Florida’s No. 1 hospital for patient safety, quality of care, and patient experience; and has earned multiple other care and safety honors.
During Kiani’s January visit, some of PMC’s specific patient safety accomplishments were noted:
• Zero ventilator-related pneumonia in 12 years
• One catheter-related urinary tract infection in 10 years
• One central-line associated bloodstream associated infection in 10 years
When PMC committed itself to meeting all 13 Actionable Patient Safety Solutions, Mikitarian charged Loftin with implementing the program hospitalwide.

“It was George Mikitarian’s vision to make PMC not just a nationally, but internationally recognized hospital for patient safety,” Loftin said. “Our board of directors assented, and laid out its expectations for safety. Our job is to meet those expectations.”

Loftin, accepting his award, told the conference, “One of the first questions I am often asked is ‘why?’ followed closely by ‘how?’ Why do we commit to patient safety? That’s easy. Every patient’s life, every person’s life, matters.

“Committing to zero by 2020 is the right thing to do, and like most things worth doing, it isn’t easy. It takes hard work. The commitment our care partners make to apply every Actionable Patient Safety Solution comes from the heart and from a deep love and respect for our community.”

The conference’s keynote speaker was former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who has undergone several heart procedures, including open-heart surgery. The Patient Safety Movement Foundation’s website says that for 2017, 81,533 lives have been saved worldwide through the implementation of processes such as APSS.