OAKBROOK TERRACE, Illinois, May 12, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum (NQF) today announced the recipients of the 2024 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards. The Eisenberg Awards, named in honor of the late John M. Eisenberg, MD, MBA, a leading advocate for healthcare quality improvement, recognize major achievements by individuals and organizations that are improving patient safety and healthcare quality in innovative and measurable ways.
Awards are presented in three categories, and winners are selected by a diverse panel of national patient safety and quality experts. The 2024 honorees are:
- National Level Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality
CommonSpirit Health, Chicago
Innovative Approach to Achieving and Sustaining Clinical Excellence - Local Level Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality
Parkland Health, Dallas
Identifying and Preventing Missed Opportunities for Diagnosis - Individual Achievement
Elliott K. Main, MD
Clinical Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California
“CommonSpirit Health, Parkland Health and Dr. Elliott K. Main are proving what’s possible when a commitment to patient safety and quality is applied to new, innovative ways of approaching challenges that are facing our industry,” said Jonathan B. Perlin, MD, PhD, president and chief executive officer, The Joint Commission and Joint Commission International. “By working toward a future where patients and staff everywhere experience the safest, highest quality care across all healthcare settings, the recipients of the 2024 Eisenberg Awards are setting new benchmarks and inspiring future leaders to advance innovation in safety and quality.”
CommonSpirit Health implemented an innovative approach to achieving and sustaining clinical excellence. By utilizing quality and patient safety measures to identify improvement opportunities, CommonSpirit prioritized three key areas: heart failure, maternal hypertension, and catheter-associated urinary tract infections. After implementing an eight-step quality improvement model and an advanced technology suite, CommonSpirit achieved significant improvements in hospital mortality rates, heart failure mortality, and disparities in care. Its virtually integrated care model embeds virtual nurses into hospital care teams at many of its locations to mentor new staff, reduce workload, manage care transitions, and cultivate collaborative patient care. Their efforts have led to improved care for more than 409,130 patients over three years and prevented more than 2,700 harm events across 99 acute care hospitals.
Parkland Health developed a comprehensive surveillance program to address missed opportunities for diagnosis. Initially focused on tracking delayed imaging findings, the program evolved to manage six high-risk diagnostic scenarios through a centralized digital health center. Key innovations include an AI language model that achieved 97.2% accuracy in identifying delayed imaging findings, a population health management tool, bilingual staff trained in motivational interviewing, and the integration of social workers. Parkland’s efforts delivered significant improvements for its patients:
- Achieved completed recommended follow-up studies in 91% of patients with abnormal imaging studies, with 4.3% of completed cases being found to have cancer and 3% to have a medical issue requiring surgical intervention.
- Delays in overdue imaging surveillance findings decreased from 17% to 9%.
- Follow-up rates for abnormal mammograms improved from 83% to 87%.
- Abnormal tumor marker follow-up gaps decreased by 27%.
Elliott K. Main, MD, clinical professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Stanford University School of Medicine, is a national leader in maternal quality and safety, directing programs at the hospital, health system, state, and national levels. Among his accomplishments, he co-founded state and national-level quality improvement collaboratives for maternal health, including the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative, which became the model for large-scale maternal quality improvement learning collaboratives. Nationally, he led the formation of the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health and has aided the development of state perinatal quality collaboratives across 49 states. Dr. Main led research to establish four national perinatal care metrics used in both Joint Commission and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services programs. He also led the development of widely adopted obstetric quality improvement toolkits and national safety bundles. At the state level, he led the creation of the Maternal Data Center, which provides timely and low-burden outcome data and analysis to hospitals across California, Oregon, and Washington.
“These three outstanding Eisenberg Awards recipients have demonstrated innovative thinking and commitment to continuous improvement of care and patient safety worthy of Dr. Eisenberg’s legacy,” said Dana Gelb Safran, ScD, president and CEO, NQF. “Each has leveraged data, quality metrics, technology, and clinical expertise in different and novel ways to achieve remarkable measurable improvements to complex healthcare challenges.”
Launched in 2002, the awards honor the late John M. Eisenberg, MD, MBA, former administrator of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. An impassioned advocate for healthcare quality improvement, Dr. Eisenberg was a founding member of NQF’s board of directors.
The achievements of each awardee will be celebrated at UNIFY 2025: Convening for Quality on Sept. 16-17 in Washington, D.C. Save your seat for The Joint Commission’s inaugural conference to learn from these distinguished healthcare leaders.
The 2024 winners join more than two decades of influential healthcare organizations and leaders that have made major strides to improve patient care worthy of an Eisenberg Award. To learn more about the achievements and strategies of each awardee and the history of the program, visit The Joint Commission and NQF websites. The achievements of each winner will also be featured in a special issue of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety later this year.
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About The Joint Commission
Founded in 1951, The Joint Commission seeks to continuously improve healthcare for the public, in collaboration with other stakeholders, by evaluating healthcare organizations and inspiring them to excel in providing safe and effective care of the highest quality and value. The Joint Commission accredits and certifies more than 22,000 healthcare organizations and programs in the United States. An independent, nonprofit organization, The Joint Commission is the nation’s oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body in healthcare. Learn more about The Joint Commission at www.jointcommission.org.
About National Quality Forum
The National Quality Forum (NQF) is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan, membership-based organization that works to improve healthcare outcomes, safety, and affordability for all people. Our unique role is to bring all voices to our table to forge multistakeholder consensus on quality measurement and improvement standards and practices that achieve measurable health improvements for all. NQF is a proud affiliate of The Joint Commission. Learn more at www.qualityforum.org.
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