ANN ARBOR, MI - He has publicly vowed to make the University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers the “safest medical center in America,” and leads a team that's making that happen. He has also led a national effort to help other hospitals measure and improve the quality of their surgical care.

And today, his peers from around the state of Michigan are saluting him for it.

On that day, Darrell A. Campbell, Jr., M.D., FACS, the chief of staff and senior associate director of UMHHC, will receive the Keystone Patient Safety & Quality Leadership Award given by the Michigan Health & Hospital Association. Campbell, who is the Ransom Professor of Surgery and Assistant Dean for Clinical Affairs at the U-M Medical School, will accept the award at an MHA meeting on Mackinac Island.

The award is given to an individual who demonstrates patient safety and quality improvement leadership that transcends the bounds of their own hospital or health system. It's based on a score, tabulated by an independent panel, which takes into account personal knowledge, leadership and passion for collaboration.

But Campbell hastens to point out that the award belongs to everyone at the U-M Health System who has worked to find new ways to prevent medical errors and near-misses, to avert infections and injuries, and to deliver the right care to the right person at the right time. He also credits his colleagues on a national surgical quality improvement project he has co-led.

“Patient safety isn't an individual pursuit, it has to be a team effort,” he says. “The same goes for this award, which I'm happy to accept on behalf of the entire team. I thank them, and I thank the senior leadership of the U-M Health System who have allowed us to pursue our efforts and helped support our work.”

Campbell, who has been UMHHC chief of staff since July 2002 and was interim chief for eight months before that, is a general surgeon and transplant specialist by training. His leadership in patient safety for the entire U-M clinical enterprise grew out of his efforts to reduce problems for patients during and after surgery.

In 1999, he led the U-M's participation in a groundbreaking pilot program to collect and analyze surgery data in a way that would give surgeons the information they need to improve care and reduce complications. Seen as daring at the time, that initial project has since grown to a national effort called the National Surgery Quality Improvement Project. Campbell chairs the NSQIP advisory committee.

Since becoming the top doctor for U-M's three hospitals and many outpatient centers, Campbell has led an exhaustive effort to improve safety and quality.

Some of the innovations implemented by UMHHC staff under his leadership:

• An online Patient Safety Reporting Form , through which anyone involved in patient care at U-M can quickly and easily report an error, a near-miss, or a dangerous situation. The form triggers a swift response to the immediate problem, but also sets in motion a review process that allows clinical staff to learn from the incident in a blame-free way, and to make changes that will prevent it from happening again. The forms also provide data for analysis.
• Regular Patient Safety Rounds where Campbell and a member of his core patient safety team visit inpatient units in the hospitals and talk frankly with clinical staff about opportunities to reduce the risk of errors or accidents, and improvements that staff have been making in their area that might be applicable to other areas of the hospital. Such rounds have led to new U-M-wide procedures for preventing falls among hospital patients.
• Several new UMHHC policies including “Speak Up for Safety” which empowers employees to point out a potentially risky patient care situation, regardless of their job or training; the “Wrong Side/Wrong Site” surgery policy that requires the entire operating room team to call a verbal “time out” before starting each procedure so they can verify key information; and strict patient identification standards to ensure patients receive the right care.
• The expansion of the U-M adult and pediatric hospitalist programs, and the launch of a new U-M-led program that brings hospitalists from around southeast Michigan together to share patient safety information. Hospitalists are general physicians who devote all their time to hospital inpatients, and can devote attention to patients' co-existing medical issues and find ways to prevent problems, missed opportunities and drug interactions.
• The opening of the Medical Simulation Center , where life-like computerized mannequins and other equipment allow doctors, nurses, paramedics, technicians and students to practice procedures in a risk-free environment. Up and running since 2004, the center will soon add systems that will allow medical residents to get “hands on” practice in inserting central-line catheters into major blood vessels; a routine but risk-prone procedure.
• A new Rapid Response Team of physicians and nurses who can be summoned anywhere in the medical center to help patients who are showing signs of imminent health problems such as breathing or heartbeat irregularities. UMHHC already has a cardiac resuscitation team that can help patients experiencing a heart attack or cardiac arrest, but the new team will focus on intervening before a crisis strikes.
• An innovative approach to apologies and malpractice claims formulated in conjunction with the U-M Health System's Legal Office. A 2001 UMHHC policy calls for clinical staff to talk openly and rapidly with patients and family members about problems or unanticipated outcomes, and to apologize when warranted. A “do the right thing” approach to legal situations has helped U-M reduce legal costs and court cases, while helping clinical staff learn from situations that prompt legal action, and compensating patients fairly for errors.
• U-M's participation in the Keystone Intensive Care Unit project sponsored by the MHA's Keystone Center. This project aims to reduce infections and other preventable problems among the very ill patients treated in intensive care units; U-M has recently expanded the number of its ICUs that participate, and has innovated new procedures to reduce infections.
• Participation in the National Surgical Infection Prevention program, which aims to ensure that every surgical patient receives care that can stave off post-operation infections.
• A new peer review system for physicians which gives individual doctors data on their performance relative to other U-M doctors, such as their rate of prescribing antibiotics, and allows them to make changes as needed. This is part of doctors' credentialing process.
• Mandatory annual patient safety training for all employees, even non-patient care staff.
• The banning of certain prescription abbreviations that could lead to errors.
• A patient safety curriculum for the U-M Hospital Executive Board, which oversees UMHS.

In all, says Campbell, “I'm tremendously proud of all we've accomplished here, and the reputation we've built, and I'm excited to share this award with everyone. But improving patient safety is a never-ending task for us and for all patient care organizations, and there's much more we can do.”

Visit this page to learn more. to learn more about patient safety at UMHHC.

Written by Kara Gavin

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