ECRI Institute PSO and ISMP Partner on PSO Programs

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Oct. 29, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization (PSO) and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) announce a new PSO partnership. ECRI Institute PSO and ISMP are both federally designated Patient Safety Organizations. Both ECRI Institute and ISMP are independent, nonprofit organizations that, together, bring more than 80 years of deep experience in patient safety. 

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"ISMP brings tremendous knowledge in medication safety and improving the medication use process," states Ronni Solomon, JD, executive vice president and general counsel, ECRI Institute.

"We are looking forward to our new collaboration with the ECRI Institute PSO to assist health systems with risk reduction strategies in the area of medication safety," said Allen Vaida, PharmD, FASHP, executive vice president, ISMP.

ECRI Institute and ISMP have worked together on patient safety initiatives for more than a decade, including current statewide work collecting and analyzing events and near misses for the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority.

"This new partnership is a natural progression of our ongoing work together and will enhance the analysis of events to make healthcare even safer," adds Solomon.

Medication errors represent the most frequently reported events submitted to ECRI Institute PSO—comprising about 30% of all events, as revealed in an in-depth analysis conducted in December 2011. According to the report, ECRI Institute PSO Deep Dive™ on Medication Safety Events, the sheer number of drugs administered in healthcare facilities increases the likelihood that medication errors will occur if risk reduction systems are not in place.

Many medication events are preventable. By analyzing medication errors, ECRI Institute and ISMP will help providers identify risks in their medication-use process and apply lessons to prevent recurrence.

ECRI Institute PSO's analytics team includes physicians and nurses; pharmacists; quality, legal, and risk management professionals; individuals with safety, education, science, and engineering backgrounds; statisticians and data analysts; and information technology experts.

ISMP's interdisciplinary staff represent decades of safety experience based in part on review of thousands of reports to the national voluntary ISMP Medication Error Reporting Program (MERP) as well as hundreds of visits to healthcare organizations nationwide.

For information about ECRI Institute PSO, visit www.ecri.org/pso, e-mail [email protected], call (610) 825-6000, ext. 5558, or write to us at 5200 Butler Pike, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462. For more information about ISMP, visit www.ismp.org, or call 215-947-7797.

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About ECRI Institute

For over 45 years, ECRI Institute's work in patient safety, adverse event reporting and analysis, and development of recommendations has improved patient care at hospitals and other providers around the world. The ECRI Institute PSO—Patient Safety Organization—is a component of ECRI Institute, a nonprofit 501(c) (3) organization dedicated to improving the safety, quality, and cost-effectiveness of patient care. ECRI Institute has a long history of investigating events and publishing authoritative risk reduction strategies. ECRI Institute is designated as an Evidence-based Practice Center by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. ECRI Institute developed and implements the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System, a mandatory error and near-miss reporting program for Pennsylvania hospitals and other health care facilities, under contract to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, winner of the 2006 John M. Eisenberg Award. For more information, visit https://www.ecri.org. Find ECRI Institute on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ECRIInstitute) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/ECRI_Institute). 

About the Institute for Safe Medication Practices

The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), based in suburban Philadelphia, is the nation's only 501c (3) nonprofit organization devoted entirely to medication error prevention and safe medication use. ISMP represents nearly 40 years of experience in helping healthcare practitioners keep patients safe, and continues to lead efforts to improve the medication use process. The Institute is known and respected worldwide as the premier resource for impartial, timely, and accurate medication safety information, and provides independent error prevention recommendations to healthcare professionals, government agencies, accrediting organizations, the pharmaceutical industry and consumers. ISMP is a federally certified patient safety organization (PSO), providing healthcare practitioners and organizations with the highest level of legal protection and confidentiality for patient safety data and error reports they submit to the Institute. For more information, visit www.ismp.org. You can also find ISMP on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ismp1) and twitter (www.twitter.com/ismp1).

SOURCE ECRI Institute