Rural Hospitals Show Improvement in Patient Safety Systems

By Anne Buckley and Sean Wagner

A new study examining patient safety systems in rural hospitals, such as automated alert systems and medication administration procedures, shows that these hospitals are making changes to address the problem more rapidly than urban hospitals, and the gap between urban and rural quality measures is narrowing.
 
“A number of innovative strategies to improve safety measures are underway nationally as a result of the National Institute of Medicine’s report regarding the tremendous problem of patient safety in the U.S.,” says study author Daniel Longo, M.D., director of research in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine.
 
Longo also notes that rural hospitals’ patient safety system needs may not always be identical to those of urban hospitals, given differences in such characteristics as patient volume.

“Existing patient safety standards are largely based on evidence from research in urban and teaching hospitals,” says Longo. “Each hospital needs to find systems that will work within their existing culture and structure.”
 
The author stresses that hospitals do not make these changes in a vacuum.

“Given the complex issue of hospital safety, the burden of improvement cannot rest on hospitals alone,” says Longo. “It requires a commitment by taxpayers, state legislatures and Congress to provide the resources and influence necessary to ensure that both rural and urban hospitals have the best possible patient safety systems.”

The study is published in the Summer 2007 issue of Journal of Rural Health. Media wishing to receive a PDF of this article may contact professionalnews@bos.blackwellpublishing.net.