Rhode Island Hospital

Safety & Quality

Rhode Island Hospital’s Commitment to Patient Safety

Hospitals are extraordinarily complex institutions, where thousands of interactions — some simple, others extraordinarily complex — occur every day. Add to that complexity the teaching and research missions of an academic center like Rhode Island Hospital, and you have a very dynamic environment.

One of the most critically important areas in all hospitals is patient safety and quality.  As the anchor hospital for the Lifespan system, Rhode Island Hospital has been instrumental in creating a robust system-wide structure to support quality and safety, and we have integrated the highly successful tools of Lean and Six Sigma in our core improvement processes.  Lean tools focus on eliminating efforts proven not to add value and Six Sigma tools focus on increasing reliability.

Rhode Island Hospital has achieved numerous patient safety and quality accomplishments.  In addition to garnering national recognition for nursing excellence and numerous national certifications and recognition for care of some of the most complex patient conditions, Rhode Island Hospital’s patient safety and quality scores are among the best in several key areas.  A most recent example is from The Leapfrog Group, which for the fifth consecutive time awarded Rhode Island Hospital with an "A" grade for hospital safety.  

Rhode Island Hospital is also a leader in patient safety reporting.  For many years, staff and providers at all levels in our hospitals and other settings have understood the importance of and their obligation to report unsafe conditions and near misses. We believe that our non-punitive environment makes individuals feel safe to report.  

The over 7,500 physicians, nurses, clinicians and staff who work at Rhode Island Hospital care for hundreds of thousands of patients each year, from our operating rooms to our ambulatory settings. Each member of the care team understands the importance of providing consistent and reliable care, with the goal of eliminating variation, so that each patient, each time receives the same standard of care.  The more standardized our practices are, the safer they become.

We know our work in patient safety is never done. We are committed to continuing to invest in training, education and implementing the latest in patient safety and quality standards to remain among the safety hospitals in the country.