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Memorial Hospital of Union County in Marysville, Ohio, is using AHRQ's Evidence Report No. 43, Making Health Care Safer: A Critical Analysis of Patient Safety Practices, in its efforts to improve professional practices within the hospital.

Sue Dill, RN, MSN, JD, the hospital's vice president for legal services, distributes summaries of AHRQ's recommended patient safety practices every month to the hospital's Patient Safety Committee. This committee uses the information to determine which safety practices it will promote within the hospital.

Dill has also developed a PowerPoint presentation that summarizes the report's recommended patient safety practices and tells hospital patient safety committees how to initiate and implement a series of patient safety initiatives. She has conducted more than 25 workshops and seminars at hospitals and hospital associations around the country, including those at five Indian Health Service hospitals, the Georgia Hospital Association, the Maryland Hospital Association, the Ohio Hospital Association, and the Tennessee Hospital Association.

Dill has also found the report valuable for her own professional education. She says, "This information has changed my practice as a nurse. In particular, I have become more aware of the need to double-check the medications I administer. One will never know how many medication errors the ÂÜÀòÊÓƵpatient safety materials have prevented."

She adds that conveniently packaged information is crucial for patient safety committees in small rural hospitals, especially hospitals without libraries. "They cannot easily do their own literature searches and analyze the relevant evidence," she explains. "Having the ÂÜÀòÊÓƵsummaries makes it easy for a committee and hospital management to implement the recommendations, since they are evidence-based and cost-effective."