OSF HealthCare employee named Patient Safety Champion

The Midwest Alliance for Patient Safety (MAPS) Patient Safety Organization (PSO) has announced the recipients of the MAPS PSO Patient Safety Champion awards in recognition of extraordinary efforts to improve patient safety in healthcare.

The individual award was presented to Joseph A. Cook, MSN, RN, CPPS, a nursing patient safety manager at OSF HealthCare in Peoria. The award was presented by MAPS, an Illinois Health and Hospital Association (IHA) company, at the MAPS PSO Annual Culture of Safety Workshop.

“Joe leads with passion and has the heart of a champion,” OSF Healthcare Chief Nursing Officer Lori Weigand said. “His passion to improve safe care is demonstrated by his willingness to guide and build workplace violence solutions as well as his leadership to learn and develop solutions that enhance safe care and OSF Mission Partners (employees) have tools and resources available due to his efforts. We are so proud of Joe and the difference he is making to improve patient safety.”

Cook was honored for his work over developing the management and post-event support elements of the Patient Aggression Prevention and Management Program. For nearly three years, he led a multi-disciplinary team in designing safety responses, which include a dedicated Control Alert Team in the hospital environment and public safety officer response in the ambulatory and home care setting. Cook’s efforts have led to an increase in reporting of more patient-related workplace violence incidents and have made a positive impact across the OSF system with regard to handling prevention and providing de-escalation techniques. In addition, Cook expanded the Safety Weekly Organizational Review and Discussion (SWORD) group to include the Medication Safety Pharmacist, Nursing Quality Program Manager, Director of Infection Prevention, Director of Regulatory Readiness, Program Manager of Professional Practice, and Program Manager of Clinical Support Services. The team’s motto is “Defending Patient Safety Across OSF."

MAPS PSO Patient Safety Champion Program
Federally certified since 2010, MAPS PSO assists its members with the important work of reducing adverse events so they can provide a safer healthcare experience for their patients. As part of its commitment to member excellence, MAPS established the Patient Safety Champion Program to reward members’ commitment to patient safety.

“IHA and MAPS are proud to congratulate this year’s awardees from OSF HealthCare and McDonough District Hospital for their steadfast commitment to prevent harm and improve patient safety,” said IHA President and CEO AJ Wilhelmi. “The extraordinary work happening at these hospitals showcases the integrity and dedication of the Illinois healthcare community to provide a safer healthcare experience for their patients.”

MAPS PSO has a vital role in coordinating adverse event reporting and aggregating the data to drive collaboration and change. MAPS PSO members use this information to guide their efforts to improve care. MAPS PSO members include 100 Midwestern health systems, hospitals, critical access hospitals, physicians groups, long-term care and specialty outpatient clinics. Each benefits from the security of a protected PSO environment to collect, analyze and learn from adverse event data and best practices.

MAPS also works with nationally recognized leaders in patient safety on research, data mapping and data collection to simplify the data submission process. To learn more about MAPS PSO, visit www.alliance4ptsafety.org.