Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 15th Anniversary Celebration of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors! This wonderful event gives us a chance to come together to recognize and celebrate what we've accomplished over these years as a coalition of patient safety champions across our diverse organizations. It also gives us an opportunity to share our goals for the future as we commit to accelerating progress in our work to protect patients. Hence we Celebrate & Accelerate!

It has been an incredibly gratifying experience to work with so many people who have been tremendously generous in supporting the Coalition's work, and so enthusiastic to be a part of the celebration. Thank you all for making our 15th Anniversary celebration a success!

• To our Co-Chairs, Jim Conway, Lynn Nicholas and Mark Reynolds who have given so much time and effort to this event and whose advice, encouragement, and outreach to sponsors was invaluable.
• To our Leadership Committee whose efforts have not only raised funds but helped to spread the word about the benefits of being a member of the Coalition.
• To all of our Afternoon Forum presenters, whose creative and rigorous work not only improves the safety of their patients but provides a learning opportunity for others to explore, and to our program committee and moderator for their assistance.
• To our Founders, whose original goals and priorities continue to inspire us.
• To our Board members, past and present, whose commitment to the Coalition and our mission has provided the leadership and oversight to ensure our continued effectiveness.
• To all our members, whose continuing involvement and support makes the work of the Coalition possible.
• To our superb staff, past and present, especially Effie Brickman who has shown her dedication to the Coalition for over 14 years, always committed to better serving our members and our mission, and always seeking opportunities to share the patient safety best practices with as wide an audience as possible.
• And of course, profound thanks to our sponsors who have generously underwritten this event and supported the ongoing work of the Coalition, as we reach out to enroll new members to improve patient safety.

The Coalition's work has demonstrated that it is essential to involve everyone in improving safety, from diverse sectors, across settings, from leadership through front-line, and especially patients and families. While it is clear that leadership is critical for patient safety, our projects have shown the invaluable role of front-line staff, and the need for broad engagement of these staff.

We have seen time and again in our collaboratives that, with the support of organizational leadership, multi-disciplinary teams of nurses, physicians, and other staff at the front line, can achieve breakthroughs in patient safety, protecting patients and enriching their own work. For example, through our CDC funded C. difficile infection prevention collaborative, 27 hospitals created multi-disciplinary teams who learned quality improvement techniques, as well as key infection prevention strategies. These teams engaged in “all teach, all learn” collaborative meetings where they shared successful strategies, along with coaching calls and consultations with faculty and colleagues on a listserve. The results were impressive – a 25% reduction in hospital acquired C. difficile infections from early 2010 to late 2011. Partnering with our member organizations, we’ve spread this strategy to include improvement teams from skilled nursing facilities together with hospital teams for infection prevention, and recently to a pilot group of primary care office practices addressing patient safety priorities in that setting.

So we know the power of these efforts, but we also recognize challenges to our progress, as we endeavor to spread and accelerate both the activities and the results. As Dr. Robert Wachter observed, the combined forces of “clinician burnout and strategic repositioning of our delivery system” contribute to our loss of focus on patient safety. He worries that we may be so distracted and overwhelmed by the myriad of demands created by the restructuring of our delivery and payment systems that the “Golden Era of Patient Safety” may be behind us.

Clearly we cannot let this happen and today’s gathering is proof that we will not settle for that. I hope that today’s Afternoon Forum, our Dinner Panel, and our shared recognition of our responsibility for patients will inspire us to keep our focus and accelerate our progress. We must provide the leadership, commit the time and resources, and support our health care workforce in a relentless pursuit of improved safety for patients. Thank you so much for celebrating with the Coalition and I look forward to continuing our work together.

With sincere appreciation,

Paula Griswold
Executive Director
Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors