National Action Plan

The American College of Healthcare Executives joins with members of the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety to announce the release of a National Action Plan to provide health systems with renewed momentum and clearer direction for eliminating preventable medical harm.

Safer Together: A National Action Plan to Advance Patient Safety draws from evidence-based practices, widely known and effective interventions, exemplar case examples, and newer innovations. The plan is the work of 27 influential federal agencies, safety organizations and experts, and patient and family advocates, first brought together in 2018 by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

The knowledge and recommendations in the National Action Plan center on four foundational areas deliberately chosen because of their widespread impact on safety across the continuum of care:

1. Culture, Leadership, and Governance: The imperative for leaders, governance bodies, and policymakers to demonstrate and foster deeply held professional commitments to safety as a core value and promote the development of cultures of safety. 
2. Patient and Family Engagement: The spread of authentic patient and family engagement; the practice of co-designing and co-producing care with patients, families, and care partners to ensure their meaningful partnership in all aspects of care design, delivery, and operations.
3. Workforce Safety: The commitment to the safety and fortification of the health care workforce as a necessary precondition to advancing patient safety; the need to work towards a unified, total system perspective and approach to eliminate harm to both patients and the workforce.
4. Learning System: The establishment of networked and continuous learning; forging learning systems within and across health care organizations at the local, regional, and national levels to encourage widespread sharing, learning, and improvement.