The Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum (NQF) seek nominations for the 2017 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards, recognizing individuals as well as local and national-level initiatives across the country that have advanced patient safety and healthcare quality.

Nominations will be accepted through October 30. To learn more and complete an online nomination, visit www.jointcommission.org/topics/eisenberg.aspx.

Each year, The Joint Commission and NQF present the Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards to recognize outstanding achievements by individuals and organizations in all healthcare settings that advance aims of the federal National Quality Strategy: better care, healthy people and communities, and smarter spending.

The 2017 awardees will be notified in January, and honored March 12 at NQF’s 2018 Annual Conference in Washington D.C. Eisenberg Award nominations are sought in three categories:

  • Individual Achievement: Individuals who have demonstrated exceptional leadership and scholarship in patient safety and healthcare quality through a substantive lifetime body of work
  • National Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality: An original and innovative project or initiative with national scope that has produced system changes or interventions that make the environment of care safer, or advocate on the patient’s behalf; such projects may involve new technologies, protocols and procedures, education, organization culture, legislation, the media, patient advocacy, and systems theory.
  • Local Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality: A project or initiative that has created impact at the local community, organizational, state or regional level; once again, technologies, protocols and procedures, education, organization culture, legislation, the media, patient advocacy, and systems theory all represent opportunities for award consideration.

Established in 2002, the John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Awards honor the late John M. Eisenberg, MD, MBA, former administrator of the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. An advocate for healthcare quality improvement, Dr. Eisenberg was a founding member of the NQF board of directors.