About
Learn more about the Patient Safety Prize.
As the inaugural focus of the Elevance Health Foundation’s Community Action Leadership initiative, the Patient Safety Prize is seeking pioneering, community-informed solutions to improve patient safety.
Building on its long-standing commitment to improve lives and communities, the Elevance Health Foundation recently launched a new initiative: Community Action Leadership. Unlike the Foundation’s traditional grantmaking and impact investing initiatives, which engage subject-matter experts within our organization, the new Community Action Leadership initiative brings together external thought leaders from across a range of disciplines to collectively define philanthropy’s role in addressing large-scale community health needs and incentivizing action for change.
The inaugural Community Action Leadership prize focuses on the topic of patient safety.
The Patient Safety Prize is seeking groundbreaking proposals that improve patient safety through community-informed solutions in three areas:
- Empowering Health Literacy for Safer Patient Care: Improving health literacy while enhancing patient and caregiver engagement, fostering trust in healthcare providers, and ultimately contributing to a culture of safety and informed decision-making.
- Innovating to Eliminate Medication Errors: Pioneer solutions that enhance medication safety, improve adherence, and reduce errors to safeguard patients’ health.
- Promoting Fall-Free Futures: Developing groundbreaking solutions to enhance fall prevention and ensure safety for the elderly.
The Importance of Patient Safety
Patient safety events disproportionately impact socially vulnerable communities and are often preventable. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that more than 1.5 million Americans visit emergency departments each year due to adverse drug events, while the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) estimates 700,000 to 1 million patient falls occur in U.S. hospitals annually. The Center for Health Care Strategies (CHCS) also finds that nearly nine in ten adults struggle with health literacy, increasing the risk of preventable harm.
Our Partner
The National Academy of Medicine is an independent, nonprofit organization committed to nonpartisan, evidence-based leadership. Its aim is to advance science, inform policy, and catalyze action to achieve optimal health for all. Its members are the nation’s foremost scholars, innovators, and business leaders committed to scientific excellence and public service. The Patient Safety Prize initiative was announced at the National Academy of Medicine (NAM)’s November Meeting, “The Future of Patient Safety: A New Paradigm.” With support from the NAM, Elevance Health Foundation will be convening a distinguished panel of experts to evaluate Prize submissions. Building on the foundation of the NAM’s landmark work, including “To Err is Human,” the Foundation aims to advance innovative, evidence-based solutions that expand access to safer, higher-quality care and improve health care experiences for all communities.
Join Us
The Patient Safety Prize welcomes applications from nonprofit and for-profit entities located within the United States and U.S. territories. Government agencies, individuals, and others can participate as part of application teams with an eligible lead organization. You may use our readiness tool to help determine your fit and eligibility for the challenge.
Strong proposals for the Patient Safety Prize will focus on one or more of our categories (Health Literacy, Medication Errors, and Fall Prevention), will include community-informed solutions, have a focus on vulnerable populations, and will meet the four criteria outlined in the scoring rubric:
- Impactful: Does the solution meaningfully tackle at least one of the patient safety categories of health literacy, medication errors, or fall prevention? Is the approach community-informed and is there demonstrated evidence that it will improve outcomes for those served?
- Innovative: Does the solution offer a novel or breakthrough community-informed approach that will accelerate patient safety? Does the proposal describe original concepts—either in the idea itself or in its approach to rapidly scale-up an existing intervention?
- Measurable: Are there clear and compelling goals and objectives, with outcomes commensurate with the program’s approach? Can the team sufficiently track and validate both quantitative and qualitative community-informed outcomes throughout the project period?
- Sustainable: Does the team have the experience, plans, resources, and buy-in from key stakeholders to succeed and mitigate risks? Are the project’s plan and budget practical and sustainable, with a high potential to create long-term community-informed impact?
About the Awards
The awardees will be selected after a series of evaluation phases. Learn more here. Based on results of Peer-to-Peer Review and the Evaluation Panel, as well as other factors that may include, but are not limited to, a wide range of solutions and geographies, the Selection Committee will recommend up to three Winners to each receive $1.5 million and up to two Honorable Mentions to each receive $250,000. Final decisions and selection of awardees will be made by Elevance Health Foundation.
