Welcome to the March 2021 edition of the Health Care Alliance for Patient Safety (APS)’s monthly newsletter!

Patient Safety Awareness Week

Patient Safety Awareness Week was March 14-20. During the week APS shared patient safety facts and encouraged advocates to tweet their members of Congress.

Even though the week may be over, you can still tweet your legislators and call for stronger patient safety legislation.

AOA Emergency Children’s Vision Summit

On Wednesday, the American Optometric Association hosted an Emergency Children’s Vision Summit. Pandemic screen-time is causing an increase in myopia, digital eye strain, and other vision conditions in children, making this virtual event more important than ever.

Optometrists had a chance to discuss children’s eye care during this time and learned how to educate their communities about the value of comprehensive eye care.

State Campaign Updates

On March 17, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law a bill that will expand the state’s optometric scope of practice, an important step to ensure all residents are able to access high-quality vision care.

At the beginning of March, APS wrote Michigan lawmakers to voice concerns about HB 4356, which could negatively impact patient safety for approximately 1.5 million contact lens-wearing Michigan residents. APS asked for additional patient safety measures to be included in order to protect the critical doctor-patient relationship.

We look forward to continuing to engage at the state level in 2021 to strengthen patient safety across the nation.

Take Our Survey

Thank you to everyone who has taken our advocate survey so far! 

If you haven’t yet, please take a moment to fill out our survey so we can get to know you better, help customize our communications with you, and understand what relationships you might have with policymakers and potential champions for patient safety. As a reminder, we’ll never ask for money - just a few moments of your time.

Thank you for continuing to help us advocate for eye health and stronger patient safety legislation.