Otho S.A. Sprague Memorial Institute awards Rush nearly $125,000 for new patient-safety project

The Otho S.A. Sprague Memorial Institute has awarded Rush University Medical Center a $124,633 grant to support a first-of-its-kind patient-safety project. The pilot program will use Rush’s mediation program to foster the development of interventions to avoid or modify activities and procedures that may have adverse effects on patients. This innovative program has the potential to serve as a model for similar mediation programs throughout Chicago and the nation.

Mediation is a voluntary process in which a trained mediator serves as a neutral guide to help resolve problems that otherwise may go to court. In Rush’s mediation and patient-safety project, the mediation process is used to amicably resolve disputes and then moves to ensure that corrective action is taken to prevent avoidable adverse events in the future.

“Rush envisions a leading-edge approach to reducing future medical malpractice actions. Under The Otho S.A. Sprague Memorial Institute grant, patient safety officers will become an integral part of the Rush Mediation Program, offering clinical strategies to reduce the possibility that similar incidents will occur,” said Max D. Brown, JD, vice president and general counsel of the Office of Legal Affairs.

The mediation team, led by Brown and Judge Jerome Lerner, mediation consultant in the Office of Legal Affairs, will review a sampling of cases. They will select those with critical safety issues and that best represent preventable harms while holding promise to effect lasting change on patient safety. A team will conduct a root cause analysis of those cases. Robert A. McNutt, MD, chief of the Section of Medical Informatics and Patient Safety, will serve as medical advisor on evidence and study designs for the patient safety projects that emanate from these cases. The team will disseminate its findings to senior executives within Rush and later to Chicago’s medical and legal communities. The grant’s internal and external educational goals will be advanced by increasing awareness within these communities as to their findings and the value of the approach.