ECRI Institute PSO Chosen by Tennessee Hospital Association for Patient Safety Services

Tennessee PSO Makes Safety and Quality Care the Top Priority

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Nov. 19, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization (PSO) today announces an agreement to provide patient safety services to the Tennessee Center for Patient Safety established by the Tennessee Hospital Association. ECRI Institute PSO will support the Tennessee Center for Patient Safety with a patient safety data collection and reporting system and by analyzing adverse events and other information from participating hospitals and health systems. This pioneering initiative will improve the quality and safety of healthcare services delivered throughout Tennessee.

"We selected ECRI Institute PSO because of its extensive experience in analyzing patient safety data and development of practical information to help providers improve the process of delivering care," Craig A. Becker, president of the Tennessee Hospital Association.  

The Tennessee Center for Patient Safety PSO will collect, aggregate and analyze serious patient safety events within a protected environment. Member education and training conferences will begin this month.

"Providers will be able to voluntarily share serious adverse event quality and patient safety information, learn from aggregate and facility-specific root cause analyses and best practices, and protect patients from harm through shared learning," stated Tennessee's Becker.  

"We're pleased to see the strong leadership role that the Tennessee Center for Patient Safety is taking in improving patient safety through the sharing of data," says Ronni Solomon, executive vice president and general counsel, ECRI Institute. "We look forward to providing the analyses and data to help them learn from and reduce adverse events."

The ECRI Institute patient safety analytics team, with experience handling more than 1 million adverse event reports, comprises an interdisciplinary patient safety staff of physicians, nurses, biomedical engineers, instructional designers, and quality, legal, and risk management professionals. Their external advisory group includes physicians, lawyers, and senior executives at hospitals and health care associations.

ECRI Institute PSO uses a Web-based patient safety reporting system to capture patient safety data in a standardized manner compatible with the common data formats published by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and National Quality Forum serious reportable events.

ECRI Institute PSO supports numerous state-based PSO programs as well as hospitals, health systems, and other provider organizations nationwide.

For information about the ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization, visit pso.ecri.org, e-mail [email protected], call (610) 825-6000, ext. 5389, or write to us at 5200 Butler Pike, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462.

About the Tennessee Center for Patient Safety

The Tennessee Center for Patient Safety (TCPS) was listed as a patient safety organization (PSO) and certified by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality as a PSO in July 2009. The TCPS is a component of the Tennessee Hospital Association's not-for-profit Tennessee Hospital Education and Research Foundation . The goal of the TCPS is to advance the adoption of proven strategies to improve the reliability, safety, and quality of care received by patients in Tennessee hospitals. In furtherance of this goal, the TCPS has developed a robust patient safety evaluation system to allow providers to voluntarily share serious adverse event quality and patient safety information, learn from aggregate and facility-specific root cause analyses and best practices, and protect patients from harm through evidence-based solutions. For more information, visit http://www.tnpatientsafety.com/.  

About ECRI Institute

For 40 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 and a Collaborating Center for Patient Safety, Risk Management and Healthcare Technology by the World Health Organization. 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.

SOURCE ECRI Institute