Ohio-Born Safety Network Honored for Preventing Serious Harm to 30,000 Children
Post Date: June 2, 2025 | Publish Date:
Ohio’s Governor Mike DeWine on May 29, 2025, honored a remarkable and life-saving milestone achieved by the now-international organization called Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety – more than 30,000 children saved from serious harm since 2012 and more than $668 million in health costs avoided.
Solutions for Patient Safety started in Ohio in 2009 as a cooperative project between all of the pediatric hospitals in the state. The shared mission: hospitals would work with business leaders and families to learn together to develop better practices to push toward a goal of zero serious harm caused by mistakes in hospital care.
Since then, the safety network has expanded to include more than 150 hospitals in North America, with interest growing among even more nations.
“Here in the heart of it all, Ohio is known for innovation, for its entrepreneurial spirit,” DeWine said during a media event on May 29, 2025. “This effort demonstrates how our children’s hospitals really came together to put innovative principles in motion, to save lives in Ohio. That’s how we conduct business.”
Ohio’s children’s hospitals include Akron Children’s Hospital, Cincinnati Children’s, Dayton Children’s, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, ProMedica Russell J. Ebeid Children’s Hospital and University Hospitals/Rainbow Babies & Children’s.
Bringing all of these often-competitive organizations together was no simple task, according to Steve Davis, MD, MMM, president and CEO of Cincinnati Children’s, and Chair of the SPS Board of Directors.
“I was at the first meeting 18 years ago when the children’s hospitals got together,” Davis said. “Nothing like this had ever been done anywhere in healthcare. I had no idea that just a few years later, we would have expanded around the country and helped to prevent harm in so many thousands of children.”
Participating SPS members have published numerous papers in medical journals detailing how the learning network has developed, shared and adopted improved best practices that have reduced harms. Among the many improvements:
- 72% reduction in adverse drug events
- 47% reduction in infections linked to urinary catheters
- 18% reduction in blood infections linked to central lines
“That ‘all teach, all learn,’ approach is fairly unique,” Davis said. “We have learned a great deal from businesses, including healthcare and vehicle manufacturers, on how they make sure that their employees and their processes are safe. We’ve learned a tremendous amount from parents, who can give us so much insight when things go wrong.”
Davis praised the participating hospitals for staying involved.
“It takes real trust to discuss mistakes openly, learn from them and share because nobody wants to make a mistake. From day one, this group has said we are going to share everything and make sure others learn to prevent mistakes from happening again,” Davis said.
Looking forward, Davis said he plans to visit Singapore in August to be the lead speaker on quality for the Institute of Healthcare Improvement.
“That illustrates the reach of this initiative that started in Ohio,” Davis said.
Don’t Miss a Post:
- Subscribe to the Research Horizons Newsletter
- Follow Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation on Bluesky, X and LinkedIn
Latest Posts
About this blog
The Research Horizons blog features news and insights about the latest discoveries and innovations developed by the scientists of Cincinnati Children's. This blog does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Subscribe to Our Newsletter