The Clinical & Translational Science Institute of Southeast Wisconsin (CTSI) held a conference, “Building Collaborations for Patient Safety and Quality Improvement”, on Tuesday, September 16th at Marquette University’s Alumni Memorial Union’s Grand Ballroom and brought together a variety of academic and health care institutions from across the greater Milwaukee area to inventory current Quality Improvement (QI) efforts, share best practices, and work collaboratively to address disparities in the area of patient safety and quality care.
The goal of the day was to make new connections, build partnerships and, ultimately, create an infrastructure to promote collaborative research and education in and amongst regional institutions to address common problems in health care.
Nearly 100 attendees from various institutions began the day hearing from keynote speaker, Dr. William Riley from Arizona State University, who talked about “The value of collaborative networks in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety”. Following Dr. Riley, Dr. Matt Scanlon, Medical Director of The Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, gave an “Overview of the state of QI research”. In addition, a panel was held on inter-disciplinary education and included Jeanne Erickson PhD, RN (UWM), Kenneth Simons, MD (MCW), and Paul Pejsa, MS, MBA (BCW).
During the conference there were three breakout sessions in which attendees discussed research, education, and collaboration to improve patient care and safety. During the sessions, attendees discussed the future of QI research, opportunities and barriers to regional collaboration, and how to best link clinicians, administrators, and researchers to solve real time problems and promote academic productivity. Other topics included research in patient safety, student and faculty education on QI and safety, and what next steps will get us there.
At the end of each breakout session, groups reconvened in the main hall to share what they learned and discussed new ideas and new ways to work together.
NIH Funding Acknowledgment:Important Reminder – Please acknowledge the NIH when publishing papers, patents, projects, and presentations resulting from the use of CTSI resources by including the NIH Funding Acknowledgement.
