KU News Release

International hospital safety expert to speak at workshop Oct. 18 on Edwards Campus

LAWRENCE —  A researcher specializing in nurse work force issues and organizational aspects of safety in hospital practice will speak at “Putting the ‘U’ in Patient Safety — Unharmed, Uninjured, Unscathed,” a symposium Oct. 18 at the University of Kansas Edwards Campus in Overland Park.

Patient safety has traditionally been taken for granted in hospitals. But in 2000, the shocking report “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System” revealed that as many as 98,000 Americans die each year because of medical errors.

Now more than ever, health care professionals are expected to be fully aware of the threats posed to themselves, as well as the patients.

Sean P. Clarke is an international consultant for hospitals and health care systems, collaborating with research teams in the United Kingdom, Iceland, Switzerland, Belgium, Australia and Canada. He will share what he has learned about improving patient safety at the symposium, which is sponsored by KU HealthPartners Inc. and the KU School of Nursing. It is part of the KU Medical Center’s Deep Discovery Series on the universal challenges faced by health care professionals who influence quality health care delivery and systems improvement.

Clarke, associate director of the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at the University of Pennsylvania, focuses his research on understanding connections between safety outcomes and the organizational contexts of acute care. He holds a grant as principal investigator in process measures of quality of care in adult medical and surgical inpatients under the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative.

A growing aspect of Clarke’s work involves writing and consulting efforts that show how working environments can be measured and how findings from organizational research can be used to guide and justify resource allocation decisions.

Michael Bleich, associate dean of nursing at KU, said the symposium is part of an intense national movement to identify and understand factors important in assuring patient safety so they can be addressed systematically. This will involve providing health care professionals with the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to uncover problems and change care delivery processes that can negatively affect patient safety.

For more information or to register, visit the symposium Web site or call toll-free 877-404-5823.

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