Wyoming Health Care Commission Patient Safety Task Force Meeting

July 9, 2007

Laramie, WY

Meeting convened: 8:00 am

Task Force Members present:

Larry Kirven, Chairman, Dixie Roberts, , Jack Glode, Jerry Calkins, Brent Sherard, Dan Perdue, Susie Pouliot, Kim Cannon (by phone) Brent Sherard, M.D

WHCC staff: Fran Cadez

Also attending: Senator Charles Scott, Rep. Bob Brechtel, Jan Bloom, Chris Urbanek, Penny Hunt, L.J. Guthman, Peggy Callantine,

  • Larry Kirven opened the meeting with introductions.
  • Patient Safety Conference:

The group discussed the development of the patient safety conference set for October 15, 2007. Possible moderators for the meeting were mentioned and included: Judge Bill Downs, Mike Sullivan and Al Simpson. The group agreed that offering CME and CLE should be pursued. Fran reported preliminary discussions with the College of Law and the possibility of coordinating the Oct. 15 seminar with activities planned for Law Week at the College during that same week in October. The College of Law plans to invite a professor in bioethics to speak during Law Week and perhaps having these presentations on subsequent days would be beneficial. A working group, consisting of Larry, Fran, Rob, Jack and Kim were designated to continue progress on the conference.

  • PatientSafetyCenter.

Senator Scott expressed interest in sponsoring legislation to support a patient safety center demonstration project. Task force members felt that legislation at this time would be premature and agreed it is important to build collaboration with the legal community now in order to have a broad base of support when legislation is eventually presented. Discussion about first funding a demonstration project through grants, perhaps from the Robert Wood Johnson foundation, to show how such a center could be created and successful would be an important step prior to seeking full funding from the legislature. Members and guests discussed the importance of seeking support and input from stakeholders at the creation stage of the PSC, in order to ensure buy-in later and reinforce the relevance of the concept. Senator Scott stated that expanding the current patient safety reporting statute to include feedback and consultation to reporters should be considered. Members noted that revisions to the current statute to include the most up to date NQF events and taxonomy also needs to be addressed by the legislature.

Next Steps:

  1. Task force members will meet with the Dean of the College of Law to continue discussion regarding the Oct. 15 conference.
  2. Conference panelists from Wyoming will be identified by the conference working group.
  • Meeting adjourned 9:15 am.

1