AAMI & Becton Dickinson's Patient Safety Award

This award recognizes outstanding achievements by healthcare professionals who have made a significant advancement toward the improvement of patient safety.

Candidates must demonstrate:

Dedication to improving the quality of healthcare and patient safety.
Current and direct involvement with a specific safety initiative to improve the safety of clinical technology or its use in healthcare.
A commitment to patient safety by writing articles, participating in committees, and/or speaking at educational events on patient safety-related topics involving technology.

Candidates should demonstrate:

Examples of their projects that were implemented to improve clinician technology challenges, thus supporting overall improvement in patient care.
Leadership in advancing the quality of healthcare and patient safety in their own organizations.
Involvement in supporting improvements to patient safety by participating in national, state, or local patient safety organizations or programs. (e.g., speaker, author, dissemination of best practices).
Special recognition by their employer for contributions to patient safety.

Nominators may submit evidence of activities relevant to this award and to the candidate's achievements. This award includes a plaque and a $1,500 check to be presented at the AAMI Exchange.

The deadline for 2021 submissions has passed. For more information, contact awards@aami.org.

2021 Recipient

Becton Dickinson 2021 Patient Safety Award

Patient Safety Learning Laboratory, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia: Christopher Bonafide, MD, MSCE; Sara B. DeMauro, MD MSCE; Melissa C. McLoone RN, BSN; James C. Won, PhD

AAMI & Becton Dickinson’s 2021 Patient Safety Award will be presented to Christopher Bonafide, MD, MSCE, Director of the Patient Safety Learning Laboratory (PSLL), and his team of dedicated professionals.

PSLL leaders James Won, PhD, SaraDeMauro, MD, MSCE, and Melissa McLoone, RN, BSN, joined Bonafide in researching alarm fatigue within hospital settings. The PSLL team played a vital role in advancing the quality of patient monitoring, leading a groundbreaking redesign of alert systems for children in acute care wards at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. These lessons are now being reapplied in the pediatric home-care setting, with a focus on re-engineering monitoring systems for parents and their children.

“Despite the myriad of challenges posed during the pandemic, our team continued working tirelessly to improve the safety of physiologic monitor systems for children and reduce alarm fatigue in the nurses and families caring for them,” said the four PSLL leaders. “Our successes would not have been possible without the incredible collaboration with the nurses and physicians on the front lines, the guidance from administrators who recognized the importance of our work within the organization, and the financial support of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.”