The collaborative was initially formed in June 2005 with funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to support and accelerate San Francisco Bay Area hospital implementation of the Institute for Healthcare Improvements 100,000 Lives Campaign, a national effort to reduce preventable deaths in US hospitals. In 18 months 3,100 participating hospitals saved an estimated 122,000 lives.

The Hospital Council of Northern and Central California received the initial grant to serve as a communications hub for hospitals and to collaborate on the IHI campaign, as well as to assess the feasibility of a collaborative.

Originally known as the Bay Area Patient Safety Collaborative (BAPSC), the effort was renamed BEACON when the Moore Foundation provided $1.94 million to the Hospital Council in April 2007 for the second phase of the collaborative's work.

BEACON's phase two goals included establishing data collection methodology for each initiative and support for participating hospitals development of intervention outcome targets and measurement strategies.

In March 2008, a $6 million three-year grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation enabled The Hospital Council of Northern and Central California to lead BEACON into its next phase. The grant supports hospital convening, quality education and on-site assistance to continue innovative efforts to accelerate quality improvement and prevent harm to the 400,000 patients admitted each year to BEACON's participating hospitals. Phase three will continue providing quality improvement training seminars and workshops, on-site quality support and quarterly Bay Area patient safety conferences with national and local speakers.

BEACON will focus efforts in 2009-2010 on eight patient safety initiatives chosen for the significant impact improvements will have on patients lives. Participating hospitals will set goals and track improvement on selected initiatives.

Falls and sepsis initiatives will be pursued BEACON-wide by all 39 participating Bay Area hospitals. Each hospital will choose at least two additional patient safety initiatives to track improvement from a menu of offerings. These initiatives include: hospital acquired pressure ulcers (HAPU), stroke mortality, acute myocardial infarction mortality (AMI), C. difficile associated disease (CDAD), catheter associated urinary tract infections (CA-UTI) and perinatal improvement by reducing birth trauma. Hospitals will continue to submit data for 2008 initiatives, VAP and CL/BSI, which have saved 331 lives as of September 2008. BEACON projects over 1200 total lives will be saved through participation in these improvement initiatives over the next 18 months.