2017 Virginia Patient Safety Summit Commences This Week

January 30, 2017

Roughly 400 Participants Expected at the 6th Annual Event, Scheduled for Feb. 2-3 in Richmond, Whose Theme is “The Human Factor: Optimizing Safety for Patients and Providers”

RICHMOND, VA – Health care providers, clinicians, and other members of the health care community are expected in Richmond later this week for a two-day event focused on patient quality and safety. Roughly 400 attendees have registered for the 6th Annual Virginia Patient Safety Summit, scheduled for Feb. 2-3, 2017. This year’s event features an array of exceptional health care leaders and advocates. Scheduled feature speakers include Virginia Senator Creigh Deeds; David Marx, CEO of Outcome Engenuity; Rich Bluni, R.N., of the Studer Group; and Chris Jerry, Founder and CEO of The Emily Jerry Foundation. Many other noteworthy speakers and accomplished medical professionals are scheduled to keynote learning sessions during the Summit. The event is jointly sponsored by the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association’s (VHHA) Virginia Hospital Research & Education Foundation (VHREF), VHHA’s Center for Healthcare Excellence, the Medical Society of Virginia, and Inova Health System.

The Patient Safety Summit traces its roots to 2011 when VHHA pursued legislation to recognize “Virginia Patient Safety Day” to raise awareness of voluntary quality and safety initiatives implemented by Virginia hospitals. That year, the Virginia General Assembly passed a resolution recognizing Feb. 2 as “Virginia Patient Safety Day,” and as an opportunity to acknowledge the 100,000-plus health care workers in Virginia’s hospitals and health systems, and their accomplishments in improving health care quality and delivering positive patient outcomes. Since then, VHHA has been a proud organizational sponsor of the Patient Safety Summit as an annual gathering of health care leaders and professionals from across the Commonwealth. The Summit represents an opportunity to showcase the important work performed by health care providers to enhance patient outcomes. As it coincides with the annual General Assembly session in Richmond, the Summit also gives health care stakeholders in town for the event a chance to visit their district legislators and encourage them to support common sense health care policy proposals.

Another noteworthy aspect of the two-day Patient Safety Summit is the inaugural presentation of VHHA’s 2017 “Imagine a Virginia” Patient Safety & Quality Leadership Award. The award is designed to recognize senior leaders in Virginia hospitals and health systems who have demonstrated outstanding vision and persistence in leading the adoption of highly reliable organization principles at their organizations. The two recipients of the award will be revealed at the event.
VHHA and its members are committed to making Virginia the healthiest state in the nation by 2020. The Commonwealth has experienced many successes on that journey as demonstrated by improvement in several population health metrics. On quality and patient safety, Virginia and its hospitals continue to earn high marks. Annual state rankings by Hospital Safety Score place Virginia in the top 10 among states the past two years, which is a reflection of Virginia community hospitals’ commitment to enhance health care quality and safety in the Commonwealth.

The 6th Annual Virginia Patient Safety Summit is made possible by the generosity of several key partners and sponsors. Sincere gratitude is extended to VHREF‘s 2016-2017 Corporate Partners, including VHHA Shared Services, Creo, Dominion, and Novo Nordisk. Member Sponsors include Inova Health System, Sentara Healthcare, VCU Health System, Riverside Health System, Centra Health, Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters, UVA Health System, and Wellmont Health System. Corporate Event Sponsors include Mary Baldwin University – Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences, Medtronic, VCU Department of Health Administration, GENEDGE, One Beacon Healthcare, Medical Society of Virginia, AccuVein, and HQI Solutions.

About VHHA: The Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association is an alliance of 107 hospitals and 30 health delivery systems that develops and advocates for sound health care policy in the Commonwealth. Its vision is to achieve excellence in both health care and health. Its vision is through the power of collaboration to be recognized as a driving force behind making Virginia the healthiest state in the nation. Connect with VHHA through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and ISupportVirginiaHospitals.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Julian Walker
Vice President of Communications
(804) 297-3193 office
(804) 304-7402 mobile
jtwalker@vhha.com