Rate Success of Patient Safety

Am I successful? Is PULSE of NY successful? Are we, as a community based patient safety organization successful? I was recently asked to think about this.

I think it depends on how we describe success. We can’t really measure our success because there are no standards on what we would measure it. Perhaps, I can think that PULSE is successful in this way:

We have probably saved lives. That is a good thing.
We are recognized by our colleagues as doing good work.

We are recognized by national leaders in patient safety as doing good work.

There is a wonderful group of people who support us either in their time, knowledge, expertise or financially.

I am busy almost every minute of every day either fulfilling our mission or finding ways to fulfill our mission. We stay on topic.
Our programs are up and running and in the communities.

These are all good things but still, the corporate world wants measurement. Something we may never do. We may never be able to rate our success. We may never have more than a few months money to help us survive. We may never even know how many lives we have saved.

So, if I am to “measure” success, I would prefer to hear it from you, my readers or feel it in my heart.