NPSF Announces 2017 Stand Up for Patient Safety Management Award Honorees

Earlier today, the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) announced the recipients of the 2017 Stand Up for Patient Safety Management Awards.

NYC Health + Hospitals Bellevue is being recognized for a program to improve the management of insulin-dependent diabetes in patients at its Adult Primary Care Center.  The Bellevue Primary Care Diabetes Team features an evidence-based text messaging program called Mobile Insulin Titration Intervention (MITI, pronounced “mighty”). Patients in the program receive a text message each morning requesting their morning fasting blood sugar level. Patients text back their results and the values are monitored daily by nurses, who call patients once weekly to advise them on an insulin dose titration using a validated dosing algorithm.

“This project was designed to both align with and inform the American Diabetes Association’s ongoing policies to promote individualized, patient-centered approaches to diabetes management that reduce health disparities,” said Andrew B. Wallach, MD, FACP, Clinical Director, Ambulatory Care, NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue. “We hope to expand the scope of this approach to disease management to other chronic diseases, such as hypertension and asthma.”

Christiana Care’s care coordination and management program also uses innovation and technology, along with a dedicated care coordination team, to improve safety and outcomes. This program integrates and analyzes clinical and claims data to help in clinical decision making, coordinate office visits when needed, enhance communication during transitions, and provide educational support to providers caring for patients with chronic illness.
“Our success with our care coordination and management program stems from a culture at Christiana Care in which the patient and their family is placed at the center of all we do,” said Sharon Anderson, RN, BSN, MS, FACHE, Christiana Care’s Chief Population Health Officer and Senior Vice President of Quality and Patient Safety. “Through this program, we address the gaps between sicknesses and health crises and we ensure that patients’ social and behavioral health needs – with their great impact on health – are being met, in addition to their medical need.”

Now in its 15th year, the Stand Up program is now part of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) safety work, following the merger between NPSF and IHI on May 1, 2017.