In 2009, Leapfrog formed the Partners Advisory Committee (PAC), an exclusive group of national and regional health plans and solution providers. These organizations advise Leapfrog on key industry trends and collaborate on a number of partner-driven initiatives. PAC members, recognizing the importance of Leapfrog’s mission—and the critical need to prioritize patient safety now more than ever—have been hard at work educating the health care community about hidden risks to patients and how facilities can take action to improve safety.
Diversified PAC Presents on a Variety of Topics
Webinars: The Leapfrog Innovators Webinar series added several new webinars throughout the last part of the year. “Vastian’s Way to Automate the Leapfrog Survey Binder” was August 7. That was quickly followed by Glytec presenting “What Excellence Looks Like: Data, Safety and the New Era of Glycemic Management”.
SureWash shared their learnings during “Ensuring Patient Safety Through Training and Educating New Staff on Hand Hygiene” at the end of September. CenTrak held a webinar in October titled “Beyond Observation: The Future of Infection Prevention Through Electronic Hand Hygiene Monitoring”. November saw Qualtrics discuss Partnerships to Drive Performance, Innovation, and High Reliability in Patient Experience.
You can view these, as well as previous webinars, here.
Workgroups: One of the most popular benefits of PAC membership is participation in the workgroups. Currently, the PAC has two groups that offer insight into topics impacting the health care field—Never Events and Environment of Care (EVS). Never Events are 29 types of events that should never happen in healthcare (according to the National Quality Forum). One example of a never event is wrong site surgery. While rare, sometimes wrong site surgery does happen and the protocol around payment and follow up care is not standardized. The recommendations will be available for public comment soon.
The EVS workgroup focuses on environmental factors in health care such as air, water and surfaces. Proper cleaning and maintenance of these items is critical to patient safety. The focus for the group in 2026 will be the production of patient-facing resources. January – March promises education on uncovering ambiguous signs that visitors often find confusing in health care facilities.
Newsletter articles: Ecolab published an article on enhancing patient safety. You can learn more here. The importance of medical equipment management was the focus of this paper by Sodexo. Trinity Guardion warned of the dangers of infant mattress contamination. Title VI Prohibition Against National Origin Discrimination Affecting Limited English Proficient (LEP) Persons was submitted by Taylor Healthcare.
September PAC Meeting: The PAC met virtually in September and had a very special guest-- Vice Adm. Raquel “Rocky” C. Bono. Rocky is a retired three-star Vice Admiral in the U.S. Navy and the first female medical officer to achieve that rank. With such an impressive career, she has a unique perspective on patient safety and shared her thoughts with the group.
December PAC Meeting: The PAC gathered in person on December 16 (see photo below) following the Leapfrog Annual Meeting and Awards Dinner. We hosted a panel discussion of making the case for patient safety and heard from an infection preventionist as well as purchasers. The meeting closed with a facilitated discussion about the sales cycle in patient safety and quality.