– The Newborn Foundation, an international nonprofit leveraging medical technologies to improve outcomes and reduce disparities for newborns, will highlight progress in global patients safety in maternal, newborn and infant health today at the 2015 Patient Safety Science and Technology Summit. Convening January 23-24, in Irvine, the Summit brings together nearly 400 clinicians, researchers, industry innovators, policy officials and advocacy leaders from across the United States and abroad, and has become recognized as a leading educational and policy forum on patient safety.
The summit focuses on several core areas of patient safety aimed at reducing preventable deaths in healthcare. To date, nine Actionable Patient Safety Solutions (APSS) commitments have been developed by stakeholders representing more than 500 hospitals and have been responsible for more than 6,000 lives saved. The global health and patient safety panel will focus on advancements in patient safety programs and policies internationally.
“Working together, we have a real opportunity to reduce medial error and preventable deaths, not just here in the U.S. but internationally,” said Jim Bialick, President of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation. “The Newborn Foundation has been part of this movement from the very beginning and through its commitments is making measureable progress toward improving safety and health outcomes for babies around the world through early detection of serious health conditions.”
Annamarie Saarinen, co-founder and CEO of the Newborn Foundation, is among the international panel of experts presenting on global health and patient safety. Saarinen — who is also the mother of a young child diagnosed as a newborn with critical heart defects — rounded out a team of expert speakers that included Dr. Majid Sadigh, WCHN Global Health, Mark Arnoldy, Possible Health, Dr. Hugo Van Aken, European Patient Safety Foundation, and Jannicke Mellin-Olsen, European Society of Anesthesiology.
The global health panel will be held at 4:00 PM PST, just prior to a summit keynote address from President Bill Clinton. Vice President Joe Biden will address the summit on Saturday, January 24.
“Nearly 3 million newborns die each year — and an additional 2.5 million are stillborn. Fully 2/3 of these deaths can be prevented,” commented Saarinen. “Patient safety for newborns includes having the infrastructure in place to support the timely diagnosis and care of mothers and fragile new babies.”
Saarinen highlighted the BORN Project, the UN’s Every Newborn Action Plan and Newborn Foundation’s efforts to advance newborn pulse oximetry screening as public policy imperative and a standard of care internationally, particularly in the lowest resource settings. Recognized for spearheading domestic and international efforts to advance newborn screening for hypoxemia, the Newborn Foundation has helped secure public health policy mandates and implementation of point of care screening in 42 U.S. states and is currently working in 5 international countries on early diagnosis and connected care for remote and underserved areas to reduce newborn mortality.
About the Newborn Foundation
The Newborn Foundation is a domestic and international non-profit leveraging health technologies to improve access and outcomes while reducing disparities for newborns. The organization has been integral in the policy development, adoption and implementation of technologies for early detection, intervention and care of the youngest patients.
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