HTSI Wins Award for ‘Pioneering Spirit’

The AAMI Foundation’s Healthcare Technology Safety Institute (HTSI) has been selected to receive the GE Healthcare-AACN Pioneering Spirit Award for its efforts to advance high acuity and critical care nursing regionally and nationally.

The award will be presented during the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses’ 2013 National Teaching Institute & Critical Care Exposition in Boston, scheduled for May 18-23. AAMI President Mary Logan and Leah Lough, executive director of the AAMI Foundation, will be on hand to accept the honor, along with other AAMI staff and supporters. Winners receive a plaque and $750 honorarium, which will help fund another HTSI project.

Established around the vision that “healthcare technology will advance patient safety and will do no harm,” HTSI has concentrated its efforts on infusion safety and clinical alarms. Its focus is to develop and share best practices, publish papers about safety innovations, identify and fill research needs, close education gaps, and reduce errors from the use of healthcare technology.

Logan thanked the HTSI volunteer community for all of its hard work. “This award really belongs to the HTSI community, especially the infusion and alarm steering committees. These are dedicated clinicians, industry experts, regulators, researchers, and others who are so committed to patient safety, they are willing to give their time to help make a difference,” she said.

Lough said the award affirms that the work of HTSI is having a positive impact. “We are confident that the work we are doing now will make an extraordinary difference in patient safety and healthcare costs in the future,” she said. “There is no doubt in any of us that HTSI will make a difference.”

HTSI already has tapped the project that will advance as a result of the honorarium. “The award check will be considered as the first contribution toward funding one of HTSI’s most important research projects, which will test enhanced alarm settings to help develop a set of recommendations for enhanced alarm parameters for clinical monitors. We are working with Johns Hopkins on the study design, and the number one thing holding us back from getting started is funding. This award check will be an important symbolic start to the funding effort,” said Logan.

Key players in the AAMI community cheered the award. “I’ve always viewed AAMI as being more than just a standards organization—I view it as a place where different stakeholders can meet and discuss common issues,” said Pat Baird, engineering director at Baxter Healthcare and chair of HTSI’s Infusion Systems Steering Committee. “Establishing HTSI and having its patient safety work recognized by AACN shows the power of what a few thoughtful people can accomplish.”

Established in 1969, AACN represents the interests of more than 500,000 nurses who care for acutely and critically ill patients. The association is dedicated to providing its members with the knowledge and resources necessary to provide optimal care to these patients and their families, according to its website.

AAMI, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, is a nonprofit organization founded in 1967. It is a diverse community of nearly 7,000 healthcare technology professionals united by one important mission—supporting the healthcare community in the development, management, and use of safe and effective medical technology.