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A Publication of WTVP

During the past two years I have described the efforts of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) regarding the “Saving 100,000 Lives Campaign.” Our three Peoria hospitals which participated are very pleased to report that 122,000 lives were actually saved in hospitals throughout the U.S. between December 2004 and June 2006. According to IHI’s website, “The 3,100 hospitals that participated in this initiative achieved a remarkable goal. Through their work on the Campaign’s interventions, combined with other national and local improvement efforts, these facilities saved an estimated 122,000 lives in 18 months. Along the way, nothing less than new standards of care began to emerge. Healthcare will never be the same—and the work continues.”

The work that continues is the “5 Million Lives Campaign,” which began in December 2006 and will go through December 2008. Its full title is “Protecting 5 Million Lives From Harm.” As a physician, I’ve sworn to uphold the Hippocratic Oath in caring for all of my patients, with one of the basic tenets being “do no harm.” The IHI has seized on this principle because its research during the past several years indicates that nearly 15 million instances of medical harm occur in the U.S. each year—a rate of over 40,000 per day. Hospital-acquired infections, adverse drug events, surgical errors, pressure sores and other complications are all too commonplace.

According to IHI’s President and CEO Donald Berwick, “To achieve this, we aim to enlist at least 4,000 U.S. hospitals in a renewed national commitment to improve patient safety faster than ever before. The 5 Million Lives Campaign challenges American hospitals to adopt the following 12 changes in care to save lives and reduce patient injuries:

The six interventions from the 100,000 Lives Campaign:

New interventions targeted at harm:

Again, all three Peoria hospitals are actively involved in reporting our data to the IHI. IBI