Twenty-five Minnesota hospitals, including Austin Medical Center, received a total of 31 awards this month recognizing their work to prevent the most prevalent types of adverse health events, such as accidental falls.

The Minnesota Hospital Association’s Patient Safety Excellence Awards honor hospitals participating in at least one of the association’s four safety campaigns.

The campaigns target efforts at preventing: pressure ulcers, or bedsores; falls; wrong-site invasive procedures and foreign objects retained during labor and delivery.

To qualify, hospitals must have implemented at least 90 percent of a campaign’s required safety measures, such as verifying that they are repositioning at-risk patients at least every two hours to prevent pressure ulcers.

This announcement marks the fourth round of winners in the 1-year-old recognition program.

The campaigns are called SAFE SKIN, SAFE from FALLS, SAFE SITE and SAFE COUNT, and their requirements are based on national and state best practices.

The requirements are also founded on participating hospitals’ sharing of information about adverse health events that occurred at their facilities.

To learn more, visit MHA’s Web site at www.mnhospitals.org.