CU Health Sciences
Center Initiates Curriculum
To Reduce Preventable Patient Injuries
In an effort to significantly reduce the incidence of preventable patient injuries, the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and the Colorado Area Health Education System (AHEC) have implemented a new effort to increase interdisciplinary education in CU medical and nursing schools.
The proposal is to improve patient safety in primary and long-term care by targeting the current generation of healthcare professionals at the graduate level with a new way of thinking about patient care delivery.
It's estimated that between 44,000 and 98,000 patient injuries or deaths occur each year in this country due to potentially preventable errors and oversights," said Marie
Miller, RN, PhD, Director of the Colorado AHEC System's Patient Safety Fellowship Program. "This proposal would heighten awareness of potential problems by teaching health professions students to work collaboratively from the very beginning," she continued. "These students will build the skills needed to think critically, define patient safety problems and intervene long before they can adversely affect the patient."
Those patient safety problems run the gamut from falling injuries to faulty prescription dosing. The hope is healthcare providers will become part of a collaborative approach to patient care and bridge the separate practice cultures of medicine and nursing by expanding the number of professionals in both disciplines who are trained to work in teams.
The program will be overseen by an appointed executive committee and involves the School of Nursing, the School of Medicine and three community clinical sites -- Salud Family Health Centers in Fort Lupton, Sunrise Community Center in Greeley and Evercare in Englewood.
The University of Colorado Health Sciences Center is one of four campuses
in the University of Colorado system. Located in Denver and Aurora, Colorado,
the center includes schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy and dentistry;
a graduate school; and two hospitals. For more information, visit the UCHSC
Web site at www.uchsc.edu, or the AHEC
Web site at www.uchsc.edu/ahec.
This project is supported by funds from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Bureau of Health Professions (BHPr), Division of Nursing (DN) and Division of Medicine (DM)under grant number 1D51 HP 10003-01, Title VII and VIII of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act, sections 747 and 811, as amended for $96,327. The information or content and conclusions are those of the author(s) and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by the DN, DM, BHPr, DHHS or the US Government