EngagingPatients.org Honors North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System’s Patient Identification Team

North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System was named the winner of the second annual John Q. Sherman Award for Excellence in Patient Engagement at the National Patient Safety Foundation’s (NPSF) 17th Annual Patient Safety Congress.

The honor was conferred by Standard Register Healthcare and NPSF’s Lucian Leape Institute on behalf of EngagingPatients.org, the online community that sponsored the award. The John Q. Sherman Award was created in 2014 to shine a spotlight on the innovative programs and people that are improving care and outcomes through patient and family engagement.

North Shore LIJ was selected from 43 nominations spanning 26 states and Canada. Nominations came from hospitals and healthcare organizations, large and small. Award submissions were exceptional and captured a wide range of unique initiatives focused on improving patient engagement.

“This year’s submissions were excellent,” said John King, president of Standard Register Healthcare.“Our panel of judges was inspired by the work done by North Shore LIJ’s Patient Identification Team. Through their ‘Eight Patient Rights’ program, North Shore LIJ empowered patients and family to become active members of the care delivery process. They also demonstrated through a holistic design and implementation process, which included patients, family and staff, a means to drive system change on a large scale.

“We are witnessing a shift in the entire culture of patient care. Ultimately, I believe projects like North Shore LIJ’s will help bring about a transformation in the way care is delivered to patients and families and ultimately will improve the total healthcare experience.”

The North Shore LIJ Health System’s Patient Identification Team focused on a system-wide approach to standardizing their process for patient identification by developing a solution guided by input from patients and families and using multiple tools and aids for education. The team developed Eight Critical Elements for Patient Identification and empowered patients with Eight Patient Rights including the right to participate, the right to understand and the right to consent or refuse treatment. Additionally, more than 35,000 clinical and non-clinical staff were trained and educated about the new Elements and Rights concerning patient education and identification.

Of North Shore LIJ’s efforts, judges’ comments included:

“They’ve empowered people with the right to speak up, to be engaged and also are giving them the tools to do it. And it goes a step further, they engaged staff, too. Giving patients rights and tools is not enough…everyone has to buy in. To do something like this across an entire system to the level they did is really hard and it affects every patient that enters into their system—inpatient or outpatient.”

In addition to selecting North Shore LIJ as the John Q. Sherman Award winner, judges also named seven finalists who are making significant progress in engaging patients and families.

2015 Finalists:

Children’s Hospital of Atlanta (Asthma Center of Excellence)
Children’s Hospital of Atlanta (Family Voice program)
Cleveland Clinic
Contra Costa Regional Medical Center
The Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania
Preston Memorial Hospital
Virginia Mason Medical Center

Nominations were evaluated on their relevance to advancing patient engagement, success in engaging patients to drive results, the sustainability of their success, potential for replication, effectiveness in collaborating with others and communicating with their audiences, and their inspirational value.

“At the National Patient Safety Foundation and the NPSF Lucian Leape Institute, we really see patient and family engagement as a critical component of safe care delivery,” said Tejal K. Gandhi, MD, MPH, CPPS, president and CEO of NPSF and president of the Institute. “The John Q. Sherman Award is a wonderful way to recognize the most effective work being done in patient engagement and to share best practices with other organizations.”

During the coming months, EngagingPatients.org will feature contributions from North Shore LIJ as well as the finalists and other nominees for the John Q. Sherman Award for Excellence in Patient Engagement.

Full details of the winner and finalists and their award-winning initiatives have been published at www.engagingpatients.org/awardwinners.

About EngagingPatients.org

Launched in June 2013, EngagingPatients.org is an online community where providers, patients and patient advocates can come together to learn and share best practices for engaging patients, and participate in thoughtful discussion. Its mission is to improve the patient and family experience and the quality of care, and to create better outcomes by enhancing communication between patients, their advocates and their providers. The John Q. Sherman Award of Excellence in Patient Engagement was created by the EngagingPatients community to recognize and give visibility to the innovative programs and approaches that are increasing patient and family engagement, and delivering better, safer care and outcomes.

About the National Patient Safety Foundation

The National Patient Safety Foundation’s vision is to create a world where patients and those who care for them are free from harm. A central voice for patient safety since 1997, NPSF partners with patients and families, the health care community, and key stakeholders to advance patient safety and health care workforce safety and disseminate strategies to prevent harm. NPSF is an independent, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. To learn more about the Foundation’s work, visit www.npsf.org.

About the NPSF Lucian Leape Institute

The NPSF Lucian Leape Institute, established in 2007, is charged with defining strategic paths and calls to action for the field of patient safety, offering vision and context for the many efforts under way within health care, and providing the leverage necessary for system-level change. Its members comprise national thought leaders with a common interest in patient safety whose expertise and influence are brought to bear as the Institute calls for the innovation necessary to expedite the work and create significant, sustainable improvements in culture, process, and outcomes critical to safer health care.

About Standard Register Healthcare

Standard Register Healthcare is a business unit of Standard Register, serving more than 1,800 clients from across the healthcare delivery network, including acute, ambulatory, and long-term care, managed care and the suppliers that support them. A recognized leader in managing patient-centric information and communications, Standard Register Healthcare provides services and technology-enabled solutions to standardize and manage communications to enhance patient engagement, the coordination of care and achieve desired outcomes. More information is available at www.standardregisterhealthcare.com .

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