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Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality

Improving Outcomes and Eliminating Harm

The Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, located in Baltimore, Maryland, provides an infrastructure that oversees, coordinates and supports patient safety and quality efforts across Johns Hopkins' integrated health care system. Our mission is to eliminate patient harm, achieve best patient outcomes at the lowest possible cost and share that knowledge through our research and trainings.

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Armstrong Institute Spotlight

Career OpportunityOpen Position - Administrative Coordinator II

This open position is responsible for managing and coordinating a variety of department projects, activities, reports, schedules, collection and management of data for projects and work in progress.

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May 16, 2025Advancing Patient Safety and Healthcare Quality: Bridging Research, Policy, and Implementation

This solutions-driven event will convene experts from Johns Hopkins Medicine and Patients for Patient Safety US with key representatives of health systems, government, industry and policy and patient groups to spark initiatives to reduce preventable harm and improve health outcomes.

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January 2025TeamSTEPPS Workshop Approved for CME Credits

Thanks to some great teamwork and hard efforts on the part of many AI staff, our TeamSTEPPS training has been approved for 12 CME credits effective January 2025.

Learn more about this workshop

December 2024Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital Recognized for Patient Safety and Quality.

Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital has been recognized as a top pediatric hospital for patient safety and quality. They are one of eight children’s hospitals nationwide – and the only one in the Tampa Bay area – to receive this honor from the Leapfrog Group.

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Dec. 17, 2024Armstrong Institute at the 2024 Leapfrog Annual Meeting

The Armstrong Institute co-hosted this year's Leapfrog Annual Meeting and Awards Dinner best practices poster session, with Matt Austin, Ph.D. as the M.C. Angela Green, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N.,  and Stacy Shilling, M.S., R.N., presented on our partnership with PACT on Communication & Resolution Programs implementation.

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Photo of Matt Austin, Angela Green, Stacy Shilling and others at the 2024 Leapfrog Annual Meeting.

How Did a Surgeon in Florida Mistake a Man’s Liver for His Spleen?

Matt Austin, Ph.D., joins colleagues as they discuss "never events", named as such as they are considered preventable errors with grave consequences that should never happen, and how these types of events can be devastating for patients, but still need to be discussed and examined to prevent them from happening.

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Other Featured News and Research

Getting the most out of organizational safety work: Accessible considerations for integration of artificial intelligence

Kate Bryant, Olivia Lounsbury, Ann Kane, M.D., and Julia Kim, M.D., discuss how integration of AI-based tools into healthcare organizations holds promise for automating incident reporting, facilitating system-focused investigations, and improving policy interpretation.
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Person-Centered Preventive Healthcare: Gathering Stakeholder Input on Evidence and Implementation

In this publication, Hanan Aboumatar, M.D., M.P.H., Julia Kim, M.D., M.P.H., Samantha Pitts, M.D., Ritu Sharma, B.Sc. and collaborators discuss how promoting the equitable delivery of clinical preventive services requires improving access to primary care but also expanding efforts beyond clinical settings to encompass public health and community infrastructure and engagement.
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Building a Culture of Quality and Safety in Health Care—The Importance of Respect for Patients

In this publication, Somnath Saha, M.D., M.P.H., and Mary Catherine Beach, M.D., M.P.H., examine how notes written in patients’ medical records can be a vehicle by which conscious or unconscious biases spread from one clinician to another, undermine quality of care for stigmatized patients and contribute to health care inequities.
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Failure to rescue—rapid response systems: A making healthcare safer rapid review

Bradford Winters, M.D., Ph.D., Michael Rosen, Ph.D., Ritu Sharma, B.Sc., Allen Zhang, B.S. and Eric Bass, M.D. review rapid response systems (RSSs), their effectiveness and factors that may be limiting their impact.
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Four Core Themes for Supporting Family Member Care Partners

In this interview, Steve Meth, J.D., M.S., discusses the urgent need to support family caregivers of acutely ill patients, and how prioritizing their unique needs while fostering collaboration among health care professionals can improve overall care.
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Dr. Rishi Irvin to Co-Host Public Health Tract of the Global Hepatitis Summit

Risha Irvin, M.D., M.P.H. will co-chair the Public Health Tract of the Global Hepatitis Summit in Los Angeles, California in March 2025.
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Improving Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins and Throughout the World

The Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality’s efforts aim to champion patient safety and provide high-quality, compassionate care to all patients, at home and around the globe.

Learn about patient safety at Johns Hopkins Medicine Learn about our collaborative efforts
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Our Patient Safety and Quality Projects

The Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality leads regional, national and international projects that reduce preventable harm, improve patient and clinical outcomes, and decrease health care costs. We apply a scientific approach to improvement, employing robust measures and rigorous data-collection methods that can be broadly disseminated and sustained.

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"Never Again”

Sharing his personal story of how a medical error severely impacted his life, C. Michael Armstrong, past chairman of the board of trustees of Johns Hopkins Medicine, explains his commitment to health care improvement and the creation of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality.

Learn about Our History
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The Power of Giving!

Our goal is to eliminate preventable harm to patients and to achieve the best patient outcomes at the lowest cost possible, and then to share knowledge of how to achieve this goal with the world.The research and improvement programs of the Armstrong Institute directly benefit patients by reducing medical errors and complications, improving clinical outcomes, and delivering care that treats patients with the dignity and respect that they deserve.

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