Harvard Primary Care Sites Collaborate on Innovations in Patient Safety, Quality

Duration: 6:38

This podcast is an episode of Safety Net. You can find other episodes and subscribe using the links to the right.

“Powerful.” “Tremendous.” “Wonderful.”

Those are the words used by doctors and nurses who participated in a multi-institution collaborative to improve care and promote safety in the ambulatory setting. It was called AIC (Academic Innovation Collaborative) Cares.

For two years The Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care partnered with its own malpractice and patient safety company, CRICO, to “move the needle” in four areas:

1. Transform practices to high-functioning, interdisciplinary teams
   
   
2. Prevent missed and delayed diagnoses of colorectal and breast cancer; in pediatric practices, reduce the gap between identifying a developmental delay in children ages 0–3, and completion of the referral
   
   
3. Create systems to integrate care for complex patients during transitions in care
   
   
4. Train multi-disciplinary teams of leaders who are capable of facilitating spread. A key component of the CRICO grant for AIC Cares: directed funding that allowed personnel from participating practices to meet off-site to engage in a learning collaborative with other practices.

Watch participants share how this project transformed their practices, and continues to fuel collaboration to prevent medical harm and promote care improvements.

Commentators

• Kathleen Conroy, MD
• Blair Fosburgh, MD
• Mallory Hamilton
• Elaine Kwiecien
• Fiona McCaughan, RN
• Ellen Reisinger
• Laura Zucker, MD