Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) Pioneer of the ORF project, CIMIT is a nonprofit consortium of Boston area teaching hospitals and engineering schools, CIMIT provides innovators with resources to explore, develop and implement novel technological solutions for today’s most urgent healthcare problems. IHE PCD IHE is an initiative by healthcare professionals and industry to improve the way computer systems in healthcare share information. IHE Patient Care Device (PCD) domain was formed in 2005 to address the integration of medical devices into the healthcare enterprise, from the point-of-care to the EHR. IHE provides a detailed implementation and testing process to promote the adoption of standards-based interoperability by vendors and users of healthcare information systems. Hospital Compare (US Dept. of Health & Human Services) This website provides a tool for obtaining information on how well hospitals care for adult patients with certain medical conditions. The information has been provided primarily by hospitals that have agreed to submit quality information. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of Health and Human Services, and other members of the Hospital Quality Alliance: Improving Care Through Information (HQA) joined in creating Hospital Compare. HIMSS 2007 Leadership Survey IT executives believe that improving the quality of care and patient satisfaction are the top business issues driving healthcare IT spending, according to the Chicago-based Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) annual HIMSS Leadership Survey. Specifically, the 360 respondents to the annual survey, 60 percent of whom were CIOs this year, cited implementing technology to reduce medical errors and promote patient safety as the top IT priority both now and for the next two years. Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare The Center was created to address the most pressing safety and quality problems in health care. The Joint Commission is using a new approach to systematically measure the magnitude of serious quality and safety problems, pinpoint their underlying causes, and develop and test targeted, long-lasting solutions. How can modern technology be used to improve the safety of medical diagnosis and therapy? Go to the MD PnP website to learn how this multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional program is meeting the challenge. MD PnP is committed to improving medical device connectivity, which supports the widespread clinical use of medical device data and enables medical device integration in order to produce complete and accurate electronic health records, reduce medical errors, and reduce healthcare costs. Site of the first installation of LiveData OR-Dashboard, the ORF at Massachusetts General Hospital is a living laboratory that explores new technology platforms and systems of care for performing minimally invasive surgical procedures. Accurate data capture and analysis, multidisciplinary teamwork, and thoughtful integration of technology are the building blocks in this environment that optimizes patient safety and comfort, staff satisfaction, and financial efficiency. Learn about how this integrated health system in Boston, Massachusetts, is using technology to provide better, safer, more cost-effective care for its patients. Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare This site (www.psqh.com) taps experts in the field for the latest news, science, research, and opinion on patient safety. Covering a broad range of safety and quality topics, PSQH is a pertinent source of information for patients, clinicians, patient safety officers, risk managers, business leaders, policy makers, educators, and commercial vendors working in all healthcare settings. Safesurg.org This site includes information on how to reduce deaths in surgical care on a global level. Featured is the World Health Organization's Safe Surgery Checklist, endorsed by the American College of Surgeons (ACS), the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN), and the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA). New York Times, October 31, 2006
This article explores how a growing number of health care providers are trying to learn from aviation accidents and, more specifically, from what the airlines have done to prevent them. In the last five years, several major hospitals have hired professional pilots to train their critical-care staff members on how to apply aviation safety principles to their work. | 
