"Why should care be any different in any of our delivery networks?" That's the question Marna Borgstrom, YNHHS president and CEO, asked the more than 800 employees at the 2016 Joseph A. Zaccagnino Patient Safety and Clinical Quality Conference May 24, at Webster Bank Arena.

"People expect to get the best of care and assume they will be safe from harm in a complex healthcare environment," she said. "We share those expectations. Everything we do is to advance clinical care and safety for every person who comes in contact with us."

Given improvements in patient care and safety throughout the system, Borgstrom referred to establishing a "signature of care" that would define consistent expectations and standards across delivery networks and NEMG.

 Alan Kliger, MD, YNHHS senior vice president and chief quality officer, Medical Affairs, added that even with improvement, "we still have a substantial challenge in continuing on our high reliability journey and hardwiring practices to make them a part of what we do every day." He stressed the importance of learning the "why" behind medical errors and improving how healthcare providers communicate medical errors to patients and families.

The annual conference brings people from every corner of the system to share best practices and learn from others' experiences in patient safety and clinical quality. This year's conference included 188 poster abstracts representing teams at Bridgeport, Greenwich and Yale New Haven hospitals, NEMG and YNHHS.

The overall award went to the Yale New Haven Hospital team for "Breaking the Barriers to 11 am Discharge on EP 9-5."