From December 2011 through March 2020, the Kansas Healthcare Collaborative led hospital patient safety improvement efforts with more than 115 hospitals statewide on behalf of the Kansas Hospital Association as a state partner with the Health Research & Educational Trust (HRET) of the American Hospital Association. The Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN) built upon the collective momentum of the Hospital Engagement Networks to reduce patient harm and preventable readmissions. Hospitals across Kansas and across the nation worked toward the CMS initiative's goals to achieve a 20 percent decrease in overall patient harm and a 12 percent reduction in 30-day hospital readmissions from 2014 and 2015 baselines.

Areas of focus included adverse drug events, hospital-acquired infections, injury from falls, readmissions, sepsis, pressure injuries, ventilator-associated event, venous thromboembolism, multi-drug resistant organisms, antibiotic stewardship, culture of safety, health equity and patient and family engagement.

In addition to hospital efforts to improve clinical outcomes, hospitals also made progress in implementing key strategies to advance health equity and patient and family engagement.

Hospitals across the state and nation worked to achieve national patient safety goals established by federal agencies. Nationwide, between 2015 and 2017, an estimated 20,500 fewer patients died in a hospital and approximately $7.7 billion in health care costs were saved as a result in reductions in hospital-acquired conditions, according to a preliminary report of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

The HIIN was supported by CMS under contract number HHSM-500-2016-00067C.

Throughout the duration of the HIIN initiative, more than 120 hospitals across Kansas participated in the HIIN with KHC and HRET.

KHC HIIN participating hospitals