Children's Mercy Hospital and Clinics is part of the Hospital Engagement Network (HEN), a national effort to improve the quality of care and patient safety in pediatric hospitals.

The HEN initiative is an ongoing collaboration between children's hospitals across the U.S. aimed at enhancing safety outcomes in the hospital setting.

The program's goals include:

• Improving the quality and safety of pediatric care
• Reducing serious harm
• Decreasing the number of hospital readmissions
• Minimizing the number of serious safety events
• Making health care more affordable by reducing Medicaid costs associated with Children's care

Through this initiative, Children's Mercy will study high-reliability industries - such as nuclear power and aviation - that achieve high safety standards in the face of complex operational hazards. Participating hospitals also focus on the transparent sharing of data, development and use of standardized pediatric process bundles and the use of common tools and techniques to address organizational culture. These efforts aim to reduce harm in 11 health care acquired conditions, including:

• Adverse drug events
• Catheter-associated urinary tract infections
• Central line-associated blood stream infections
• Injuries from falls and immobility
• Pressure ulcers
• Surgical site infections
• Ventilator-associated pneumonia
• Preventable readmissions
• Obstetrical adverse events
• Venous thromboembolism
• Serious safety events

The HEN is also working to develop definitions for these health care-acquired conditions to for use by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as national definitions for pediatric harm measures.