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Trinity Health’s Paul Conlon Named First Recipient of MHA Patient Safety & Quality Leadership Award

Novi, Michigan (July 2, 2004) – The Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA) awarded its first Patient Safety & Quality Leadership Award to Paul Conlon, PharmD, JD, Vice President of Clinical Quality and Safety, Trinity Health, during its annual meeting.

The new award is designated to honor health administrators who improve patient safety and quality for all.

“I have personally seen the positive effect of Paul’s leadership on quality and safety initiatives across our health system, among national trade groups and with influential purchasers and providers of health care,” said Judy Pelham, President and CEO, Trinity Health. “Paul exemplifies the tireless commitment to improving patient safety and quality that this new award symbolizes.”

Like many health professionals, Conlon was moved to action by an eye-opening federal report in 1999 that said as many as 98,000 deaths a year might be caused by preventable errors by doctors, nurses, and other hospital personnel.

Convinced that quality and safety are noncompetitive issues, Conlon works collaboratively with Trinity Health’s member organizations and health care professionals from other organizations. He was the first co-chair of MHA’s Patient Safety Committee and is involved with national patient safety organizations and Michigan Health and Safety Coalition initiatives.

He is a leader in advocating for the patient through use of new technology and key clinical indicators. He has worked with the National Quality Forum to develop quality indicator sets for hospital care performance, nursing homes, diabetes care, nursing care, safe practices and severity adjusted methodologies.

Guided by Conlon’s leadership, Trinity Health has been influential in encouraging the JCAHO to improve current clinical performance measures, such as time-to-antibiotic for community acquired pneumonia. He has worked directly with General Motors to help them understand the underlying causes of the automaker’s increasing health care costs.

At Trinity Health, Conlon and his clinical quality team developed a set of 16 Core Clinical Indicators, which are key markers of quality tracked by every hospital within Trinity Health.

“Paul has helped Trinity Health achieve remarkable performance improvement in measures involving AMI, heart failure, pneumonia, and key medical chart documentation,” said Narendra Kini, MD, Executive Vice President, Clinical and Physician Services, Trinity Health.

Conlon has been instrumental in defining clinical criteria for two of Trinity Health’s major clinical IT and systemic change initiatives. Working with Cerner Corporation, Conlon is helping to define the future of clinical order entry systems. With PEERS, the system’s Potential Error/Event Reporting System, he is leading a voluntary online reporting effort to dramatically reduce errors in clinical care.

“Through his determined efforts, Paul is inspiring collaboration among nursing, medical staff and administrators in our hospitals to improve clinical quality,” Pelham said. “He is always pressing for dialogue and agreement that will ultimately improve patient care.”