National Healthcare Leaders to Design an Ambition Health System with Safety at its Core

The prevalence of medical error is widely discussed, with reports of 1 in 4 Americans receiving health care in the U.S. experiencing harm. Despite the increasing availability of tech solutions to support safer health care and political momentum with the introduction of bipartisan legislation in 2024 to establish a National Patient Safety Board, progress has stalled.

Medical errors cost more than 200,000 patient lives each year, and these preventable harms such as surgical complications, infections and medication errors cost the U.S. healthcare system upwards of $35 billion dollars annually. And, a July 2025 Office of the Inspector General report found that hospitals failed to capture half of patient harm events.

In a new effort to demonstrate what is possible in patient safety, the Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) and Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI), pioneers in the push to end medical harm, announce the launch of the Coalition for Advancing Safer Healthcare (CASH). In collaboration with four major health systems and leaders in healthcare safety, CASH will work to build a model for an ideal yet feasible health system of the future designed for safety, nicknamed the Ambition Health System.

With an initial focus on four strategic areas, each partner hub will lead a national, multidisciplinary work group to identify specific safety solutions that would define the Ambition Health System.

The four partners and their strategic focus areas are:

• Johns Hopkins Medicine Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality: Large-Scale Health System Technology
• MedStar Health National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare: Human Factors Solutions
• UC San Diego Health: Data for Improvement
• The University of Utah Center for Evaluation of Health AI Research: Direct-to-Consumer Technology

"Empowering patients with real-time access to all relevant information enables them to actively participate in enhancing the safety and quality of their own care,” said David Classen, MD, professor of Medicine at the University of Utah Health, team leader at the Center for Evaluation of Health AI Research, and head of the CASH working group for direct-to-consumer technology.

PRHI, as a non-profit operating arm of JHF, will serve as the CASH organizing entity, with technical expertise provided by Ken Catchpole, PhD, Medical University of South Carolina’s SmartState Endowed Chair in Clinical Practice and Human Factors and a member of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation’s Committee on Scientific Evaluation.

“The JHF CASH initiative is an exceptional opportunity to shape the future of patient safety. I’m energized by the depth and diversity of expertise in our workgroup and across the program. Together we’ll generate innovative, actionable ideas with practical near-term impact and build the learning systems that will guide safer care for years to come. I’m hopeful that by convening diverse talent and real-world experience, we can rethink and redesign safety,” said Michael Rosen, MA, PhD, Human Factors Psychologist and Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, leader of the working group on large-scale health system technology.

“Building on the patient safety AI conference cohosted at UC San Diego Health with JHF and the National Academy of Medicine, we are striving to make transformative improvements by taking full advantage of data across the healthcare continuum. We will outline actionable recommendations to break down silos, integrate diverse data sources, and use advanced analytics to prevent patient harm, promote transparency, and support our care teams. Using data to drive continuous learning and collaboration, we are working to create a safer, smarter, more efficient healthcare system where every decision is informed, and every patient is protected,” said working group leader Chris Longhurst, MD, MS, chief clinical & innovation officer, associate dean and clinical professor at UC San Diego Health.

Raj Ratwani, PhD, vice president of scientific affairs, MedStar Health Research Institute, professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and director of the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare said: “My aspirations for the human factors working group is that we will illuminate the hidden risks in healthcare settings through the science of human factors and champion sustainable solutions that put patient well-being first.”

Partner organizations will lead working groups through December 2025, with recommendations for the Ambition Health System to be released in the spring of 2026.

“Our Foundation has attempted to advance patient safety since the late nineties,” said JHF and PRHI President and CEO Karen Wolk Feinstein, PhD. “We know medical error can lead to permanent disability and death for patients, but it also adds cost and demoralizes staff in an already fragile healthcare system. As our hopes of creating a federal agency totally focused on patient safety dissolved, we envisioned an alternative, private-sector effort to identify the fundamentals of a health system designed for safety. We’re grateful to the healthcare visionaries who have partnered to create the Ambition Health System.”