The Minnesota Hospital Association Patient Safety Excellence Award honors superior performance in preventing adverse health events. The award is given to hospitals that are actively participating in one of MHA's safety campaigns -- SAFE from FALLS, SAFE SKIN, SAFE COUNT, and SAFE SITE -- and achieve 90 percent or higher of campaign roadmap steps.

For this round of awards, 58 hospitals earned the recognition. A total of 46 hospitals were named in the first round of the program. Each quarter, MHA will announce any new qualifiers.

"Hospitals that receive these awards are to be commended -- the bar is set very high," said MHA Patient Safety Vice President Tania Daniels. "Hospitals that qualify have achieved measurable and meaningful progress toward implementing best practices to drive down adverse health events."

Each quarter, participating hospitals measure their progress in implementing the roadmap. Hospitals qualify if they reach the 90 percent benchmark during that timeframe. The next round of awards will occur in January of 2009.

See list of award-winning hospitals for October and May 2008: [DOC]. Some award winners have shared their photos with MHA here.