More companies and hospitals are being drawn to the patient safety movement spearheaded by the chief executive of Irvine-based patient monitor maker Masimo Corp.
Some 30 device makers are now part of the effort to stop the estimated 200,000 American hospital patient deaths each year from infections and other complications that start with hospital stays, up from nine a year ago, Joe Kiani said last week.
Errors such as conflicting medication or wrong dosages can lead to preventable patient deaths, and the core of Kiani’s effort involves encouraging the industry to share data gleaned from medical devices used in hospitals to help avoid the errors.
Kiani and Masimo held a second patient safety summit last month where the movement’s goal of zero preventable deaths by 2020 was reiterated, as well as new commitments made.
Philips Medical
One of the new companies taking part is Philips Medical, a unit of Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics NV that Masimo sells patient monitoring technology to.
Mike Mancuso, chief executive of Philips Medical’s patient care and monitoring solutions group, “not only came, made the pledge, but he also wants to get the med-tech companies more engaged and head that coalition,” Kiani said.
He said he’s hoping to get more companies in the region involved, such as Irvine-based heart valve maker Edwards Lifesciences Corp., and CareFusion Corp., a San Diego-based maker of devices devoted to reducing healthcare-related infections.
Kiani said hospitals that participated in the patient safety movement have saved 602 lives over the past year and that he’s hopeful the number will increase to “over 6,001 lives saved.”
“We did actually show through the hospitals that made the commitment, they indeed had saved lives.”
Local hospital operators participating in the movement include Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach and Irvine, and Covenant Health Network, an Irvine-based integrated delivery network that’s a partnership between Hoag and St. Joseph Health, which is also based in Irvine.
The patient safety movement’s “vision is very much in keeping with St. Joseph Health’s commitment to perfect care and Hoag’s ongoing commitment to be among the top in the nation for quality,” Richard Afable, Covenant’s chief executive, said in a statement. “We see our participation in this movement as one component of our ongoing efforts to improve patient care and our communities’ health and well-being.”
Kiani said former President Bill Clinton, who made his second consecutive appearance at the summit, vowed to put his muscle behind the movement.
The movement also introduced three new “actionable patient safety solutions” related to healthcare-associated infections, hand-off communications, and fostering a culture of safety. They joined six previously adopted solutions.
“These three contribute to over 100,000 lives lost each year,” Kiani said. “I think these nine are probably two-thirds the reasons people are getting killed in our [hospitals]. Next year we intend to issue three new ones to keep bridging the gap. The majority [of patient deaths] are solvable with today’s technology.”
The patient safety movement does fly in the face of long-standing business practices, because medical device makers, like other companies, tend to view data their products gather as proprietary, and there is obvious monetary and practical value in some data and potential in others.
Potential “Flurry”
Sharing data could lead to a “flurry of entrepreneurs” creating companies and technologies to allow data sharing among the plethora of hospital-based medical devices to improve patient safety, according to Kiani.
He compared the potential to the late 1990s, when companies such as Netscape Communications Corp. emerged in the Internet’s early days.
“It’s almost like, ‘build it, and they will come,’ ” Kiani said.
If a company chooses not to sign the patient safety pledge, Kiani said that could have some business implications.
“We’re telling hospitals … don’t buy products from companies that haven’t made the pledge. Not because we’re trying to give [pledge signers] a leg up, but we’re trying make the rest of them come” into the movement.
Kiani also said that he believes patient safety “should transcend competition.”
He added that the Patient Safety Foundation, a nonprofit Masimo arm, are hopeful that device maker Covidien PLC, a longtime Masimo rival, would sign the pledge.
Movement goals also include creating “smart algorithms that sniff the patient’s data” from hospitals, doctors’ offices and other sources, he said.
He added that getting algorithms is important because otherwise “we will eventually hit the wall” when it comes to preventing more patient deaths.
Kiani and Masimo’s movement began last year under the banner of the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare.
Regulators and accrediting bodies were also among the attendees at this year’s summit, including the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the Joint Commission, a Washington-based nonprofit organization.
The “Joint Commission actually co-convened the meeting with us,” Kiani said.
