Kimberly-Clark, Safe Care Campaign Launch Quick Response Code Patient Safety Education Program

Kimberly-Clark announces the launch of the QR (Quick Response) Code Patient Safety Education Program in collaboration with the Safe Care Campaign to provide hospitals and healthcare facilities with free patient and caregiver education available instantly at the bedside.    

Each year, medical errors and delivery of care mistakes harm or kill patients and cost hospitals billions of dollars. Kimberly-Clark and Safe Care Campaign teamed up with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Joint Commissions Speak Up Educational Campaign and the Patient Channel to issue the Learn How to Be Safe While Receiving Medical Care QR-code enabled poster to healthcare facilities nationwide.  The free poster delivers critical patient education information directly into the hands of patients and their families when they need it most and requires no staff time or training. 

Infection prevention is everyones responsibility. One of the most powerful ways in which patients and caregivers can join medical professionals in helping to ensure safe and effective outcomes is by asking the right questions, gathering information and gleaning knowledge, says Joanne Bauer, president of Kimberly-Clark Health Care. Our participation in this Patient Safety Education Program is yet another way in which we hope to reach consumers with potentially life-saving information and to further support medical professionals in helping them prevent the spread of healthcare-associated infections.

The Patient Safety Education Program poster offers instant access via a QR reader app or text message to nine educational vignettes related to healthcare facilities most common patient safety issues:

 Insisting on proper hand hygiene from your caregiver
 Preventing an infection when youre having surgery
 Preventing a blood stream infection
 Preventing medication errors
 Preventing an infection when you have a urinary catheter
 Preventing errors during medical care
 Preventing patient falls
 Safety when your loved one is on a ventilator
 Patients Guide to a Clean Healthcare Environment

For the first time in the history of American healthcare, all healthcare facilities now have access to free patient safety educational resources. With the support of Kimberly-Clark, we are able to help restore patients from crisis to better health and improve the quality of their lives, says Victoria Nahum, executive director of the Safe Care Campaign. This program will arm and empower patients and their families with critical patient safety information when and where they need it. 

To download the free Patient Safety Education Program poster, visit http://www.safecarecampaign.org/poster/choose_your_program.html

Healthcare facilities can also order customized posters featuring videos most relevant to their needs.  A free companion iBook is also available to patients to help them understand what they can do to prevent medical harm from occurring while in the process of receiving care.  The book is available on the iPad through iBooks and via a computer through iTunes.

The Safe Care Campaign was founded by Victoria and Armando Nahum in 2006 after three members of their family were infected in three different hospitals in three different states in just 10 months time. Their son, Joshua, died from an infection acquired in the hospital, but not until after Gram-negative bacteria in his skull caused so much pressure around his brain that it pushed part of his brain into his spinal column, making him a permanent ventilator-dependent quadriplegic. He was 27.