National Action Alliance for Patient and Workforce Safety: National Healthcare Safety Dashboard

Summary

The National Action Alliance for Patient and Workforce Safety (NAA) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched the National Healthcare Safety Dashboard, an online resource that aggregates hospital safety data from four primary measurement sources creating one comprehensive resource for understanding the current state of patient and workforce safety.

Content

NAA is a collective of federal agencies and private partners led by the HHS Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). The AHRQ National Advisory Council, which makes recommendations to the HHS secretary and director on healthcare improvement efforts, has established a goal of reducing patient and workforce harm by 50 percent from its pandemic-driven high by 2026.

The National Healthcare Safety Dashboard makes national safety data more transparent, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of healthcare safety by care setting, beginning with hospital care. It opens doors to information and best practices to empower healthcare provider organisations, patient advocates, policymakers, professional associations and others to monitor national safety progress and make informed decisions to improve safety nationwide.

The initial version of the dashboard offers access to hospital safety data and will expand to include other healthcare settings, such as ambulatory clinics and nursing homes. The data sources include:

• AHRQ’s Hospital Patient Safety Indicators from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project.
• AHRQ’s Hospital Medicare Adverse Events from the Quality and Safety Review System.
• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Hospital Reporting Program Safety Measures.
• AHRQ’s Surveys on Patient Safety Culture® (SOPS®) Hospital Survey.