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Coalition for Quality & Patient Safety of Chicagoland PSO Taps ECRI Institute PSO for Patient Safety Support

Posted on: Thursday, 14 May 2009, 08:44 CDT

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., May 14 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization (PSO) is pleased to announce an agreement with the Coalition for Quality & Patient Safety (CQPS) of Chicagoland PSO to provide patient safety data collection, reporting, and analysis. The Chicagoland PSO focuses on local experience, patterns, trends, and patient safety initiatives specific to Chicago and the surrounding counties.

CQPS will coordinate its PSO and other patient safety efforts with other Illinois-based hospital and primary care associations, the Illinois Department of Public Health, consumers and consumer advocates, other patient safety and quality improvement stakeholders, and existing patient safety collaboratives across the state.

"Our goal is to engage all stakeholders in Chicagoland in practical efforts to prevent harm where we can and to learn from error when it occurs. The CQPS PSO is an exciting new tool that will advance our members' safety and quality improvement work through collaborative sharing in a legally protected and confidential manner," says new CQPS Chief Executive Officer Martin J. Hatlie, J.D. "Hospitals, medical groups, and long-term care and other providers will soon be able to learn, not only from their own events, but from those pooled throughout Chicagoland," adds Hatlie. "That's the beauty of the program."

ECRI Institute(R) (https://www.ecri.org), an independent nonprofit organization that researches best approaches to improving patient care, has 40 years of experience in operating healthcare problem reporting systems and safety initiatives. ECRI Institute PSO will provide "back office" support to the Chicagoland PSO through a Patient Safety Data Collection and Reporting System and by analyzing adverse events and other information from participating healthcare organizations. The reporting platform is powered by rL Solutions (http://www.rl-solutions.com), a leading software company with deep experience in adverse event reporting.

"We applaud CQPS PSO for its commitment to promoting a culture of safety in healthcare by establishing a program to take advantage of the newly implemented federal Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005," says Ronni Solomon, Esq., executive vice president and general counsel, ECRI Institute. "We look forward to sharing the knowledge ECRI Institute has built based on four decades of patient safety experience, plus success in implementing the first statewide error reporting system for Pennsylvania," adds Solomon.

ECRI Institute PSO will provide data collection, reporting, and analytic support and quarterly patient safety advisories. ECRI Institute PSO uses a Web-based patient safety reporting system to capture patient safety data in a standardized manner compatible with the AHRQ's common data formats and National Quality Forum (NQF) serious reportable events. The platform, powered by rL Solutions, provides a secure way for ECRI Institute PSO to accept information from providers using any electronic system, along with an intuitive interface for manual data entry.

The ECRI Institute PSO analytics team, with experience handling more than 1 million adverse event reports, comprises an interdisciplinary staff of physicians; nurses; biomedical engineers; instructional designers; quality, legal, and risk management professionals; individuals with safety, education, science, and engineering backgrounds; statisticians and data analysts; and information technology experts. In addition to the internal program team, the external advisory group includes physicians, lawyers, and senior executives at hospitals and healthcare associations.

ECRI Institute PSO also offers direct PSO memberships consisting of Web-based reporting tools, member-specific analytics, assessments, culture-of-safety recommendations, interactive tools, best practices, continuing medical education (CME) courses, and advisories.

For information about ECRI Institute PSO support for other PSOs, or PSO membership, visit pso.ecri.org, e-mail pso@ecri.org, call (610) 825-6000, ext. 5389, or write to us at 5200 Butler Pike, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462.

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. 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 has developed and implements the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System, a mandatory error and near-miss reporting program for Pennsylvania hospitals and other healthcare facilities, under contract to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, winner of the 2006 John M. Eisenberg Award. ECRI Institute PSO is a component of ECRI Institute. For more information, visit https://www.ecri.org.

About Coalition for Quality & Patient Safety of Chicagoland

The CQPS mission is to mobilize the diverse healthcare stakeholders in metropolitan Chicago to provide the best possible care to every patient every time by eliminating preventable harm and implementing systemic change to promote consistent excellence. Coalition for Quality & Patient Safety (CQPS) has attained listing by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a federal Patient Safety Organization under the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005. By contracting with a national PSO and IT vendor(s), CQPS will collect incident report and other patient safety work product data from contracted (member) healthcare providers, and provide analysis, reporting, collaborative learning, and dissemination of best practices and patient safety advisories to advance the culture of safety. For more information, visit http://www.cqps.org/CPSF_initiatives/CPSF-PSO.htm.

About rL Solutions

rL Solutions provides proven risk management, patient feedback, claims, and infection control software to help healthcare organizations improve patient safety and healthcare quality. rL Solutions brings together innovative technologies, stellar client service, and a broad ecosystem of partners to give its 500 clients a complete safety and quality solution. With products that are easy to use and easy to implement, rL Solutions is a world leader in the healthcare market. For more information, visit www.rl-solutions.com.

SOURCE ECRI Institute

Source: PR Newswire

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