Posted by Joachim Roski, PhD on December 09, 2014
The Military Health System (MHS) is engaged in supporting organizational and care transformation to improve patient safety, quality, access, and health outcomes for patients and beneficiaries. Booz Allen has partnered with the Department of Defense Patient Safety Program (PSP) – now housed within the Defense Health Agency’s (DHA) Clinical Support Division (CSD) – since 2005 to measure, analyze, and improve patient safety and implement effective solutions. We are also supporting the Air Force in the implementation of its current and future planned patient safety efforts.
We also supported the 90-day review of safety, quality, and access ordered by the Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, over the summer and are now supporting the more than 80 action steps that the review identified in September 2014. Specifically, Booz Allen will help address follow-on activities to move the MHS to a High Reliability Organization, as well as addressing outliers follow-up, development of a campaign plan, establishment of a performance management system, and development of transparency initiatives.
To date, Booz Allen results for the PSP have included:
- 100,000 patient safety professionals trained in MHS-wide rollout of TeamSTEPPS® – a teamwork system designed to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of health care
- 21 percent reduction in patient harm rates across nine preventable areas of harm
- 13 percent drop in readmissions at 55 military treatment facilities
- 250+ Patient Safety Managers trained in improvement essentials
Since the beginning of our broad engagement with the MHS our clients have relied on Booz Allen’s strategic guidance and operational support to improve and innovate in patient safety and quality. Day-in-and-day-out, Booz Allen provides expertise in the following areas:
- Strategic planning
- Organizational design
- Performance and process improvement
- Change management
- Strategic communications and stakeholder engagement
- Measurement
- Evaluation and data analysis
- Technical assistance
- Oversight, implementation and monitoring of large-scale initiatives
It is through our high-caliber work that Booz Allen has been able to expand our integral role in the success of patient safety efforts across the MHS.