Member Organizations

 The Massachusetts Coalition

The Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors is a public-private partnership whose mission is to improve patient safety and eliminate medical errors in Massachusetts.

The Coalition's membership includes consumer organizations, state agencies, hospitals, professional associations for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, long-term care, as well as health plans, employers, policymakers, and researchers. The Coalition leverages the efforts of all of these organizations to accomplish the shared goal of improving patient safety. The Coalition promotes a systems-oriented approach to improving patient safety, identifying the causes of medical errors, and developing and supporting implementation of strategies for prevention.

Patient Safety Forums

Read the materials from past annual forums

Coalition Initiatives

Listed below are links to the Coalition's Initiatives in the prevention of medical errors:

• Healthcare Associated Infections
• Improving Care Transitions
• Patient and Family Advisory Councils
• Patient Safety in Office Practices
• Resident and Family Councils in Long Term Care
• Massachusetts Alliance for Communication and Resolution following Medical Injury (MACRMI)
• Reducing Medication Errors
  • Anticoagulation Medication Safety
  • Medication List
  • Reconciling Medications
  • Inpatient Processes
  • Reducing Medication Errors in Long Term Care Facilities - Best Practices
  • Consumer Medication Safety
• Communicating Critical Test Results
• Treatment and Prophylaxis of DVT and VTE
• Defining Accountability in Patient Safety
• Reducing Restraint & Seclusion Use
• Reporting Requirements
• Educational Programs

Selected Coalition Accomplishments

Successful Improvement Collaboratives:

• An infection prevention collaborative with 100% participation of hospitals in the state.
• A collaborative to prevent C. difficile infections which reduced these life-threatening infections 25% among the 27 participating hospitals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted this success
• A collaborative for more than 30 long-term care facilities which reduced over-diagnosis of urinary tract infections by 33%, thus also reducing inappropriate antibiotic use that promotes development of drug-resistant organisms and C. difficile infections.
• With several partnering organizations, the PROMISES (Proactive Reduction of Outpatient Malpractice: Improving Safety, Efficiency, and Satisfaction) project reduced potential adverse events from medications or abnormal test results by nearly 70% in 16 primary care practices, and reduced potential serious events by 60%.

Joint Commission 2005 National Patient Safety Goals include Coalition initiatives:

The National Patient Safety Goals established by the Joint Commission for 2005 for hospitals nationally included new standards for the two topics which were already the focus of statewide patient safety initiatives sponsored by the Coalition and Massachusetts Hospital Association - Reconciling Medications and Communicating Critical Test Results. The safe practices and toolkits for these topics may be found on the Initiatives page.