Media Contacts:
Ken Powers
Media Relations Manager
The Joint Commission
630.792.5175
kpowers@jointcommission.org
Alicia Aebersold
Vice President, Communications
National Quality Forum
202.783.2772
aaebersold@qualityforum.org
(OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. and WASHINGTON, D.C. – February 14, 2008) The Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum (NQF) are accepting applications for the 2008 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards, which recognize individuals and health care organizations that are making significant contributions in improving the safety and quality of patient care.
Nomination forms for the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards are available at www.jointcommission.org and www.qualityforum.org. The deadline for nominations is April 14, 2008.
The awards honor the memory of Dr. Eisenberg, a nationally recognized leader in health care quality improvement who advocated for health care—based on a strong foundation of research—that meets the needs and perspectives of patients. Dr. Eisenberg, who died in 2002, spearheaded national efforts to reduce medical errors and improve patient safety as director of the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
The John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards are presented each year, in up to four categories, including individual achievement and project-related achievements in research and innovation in patient safety and quality at both the national and local level. The accomplishments of award nominees must be focused on either improving patient safety or the quality of health care, leadership in advancing methods for measuring and reporting health care quality, expanding the public’s capacity to evaluate the quality and safety of health care, and promoting health care choices based on information about safety and quality.
Awards are not necessarily given in each category every year and more than one award could be presented in a given category. An award panel of outside experts in patient safety and health care quality select the recipients. The December 2008 issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety will feature articles describing the achievements of the award recipients.
2007 recipients are:
Individual Achievement
- Flaura Koplin Winston, M.D., Ph.D., Center for Injury Research and Prevention, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania, Pa.
- Darrell A. Campbell, Jr., M.D., University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Research Achievement
- Eric Thomas, M.D., M.P.H., The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, Texas
Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality at a National Level
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.
Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality at a Local Level
- Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, Evanston, Ill.
More information about past recipients of the Eisenberg Award can be found at http://www.jointcommission.org/PatientSafety/EisenbergAward/.
Completed nomination forms may be mailed to the attention of Linda Hanold, director, Department of Quality Measurement, The Joint Commission, One Renaissance Boulevard, Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., 60181. The 2008 awards will be presented at the NQF National Policy Conference on Quality October 15-16, 2008 in Washington, D.C.