The Midwest Alliance for Patient Safety (MAPS) and ECRI Institute, two patient safety organizations (PSO), have announced that they are teaming up to expand the PSO program and help transform patient care in Illinois and beyond. As part of the PSO expansion, MAPS and ECRI will work together on delivering PSO adverse event data collection solutions, robust educational opportunities, and privilege protections provided by law. The enhanced program reportedly provides nationally recognized PSO training, in-depth data analysis, and extensive educational tools for improving the quality of patient care.

“Our collective resources will support patient safety initiatives while providing all the benefits and protections of belonging to a PSO,” said Maryjane Wurth, CEO of MAPS. “By collaborating with ECRI Institute, MAPS is one step closer to our goal of providing the most comprehensive and dynamic PSO program in the Midwest.”

According to the announcement from the two organizations, PSOs are designed to help clinicians, hospitals, and healthcare organizations improve patient care delivery by encouraging them to conduct quality and safety analyses. PSOs utilize aggregate data sharing across multiple healthcare provider groups. The goal is to identify issues quickly and allow improved early warning and communication about ways of reducing risk and improving quality.

Key benefits include:

  • Analytic support and access to robust quality improvement tools;
  • Peer and professional insight into patient safety events and prevention;
  • Quarterly patient safety newsletters, webinars, and social media engagement; and
  • Conference calls to share lessons learned and best practices.

PSO membership allows hospitals to meet the 2017 Accountable Care Act requirement. This requirement stipulates that Qualified Health Plans participating with health insurance exchanges contract with hospitals of more than 50 beds, only if those hospitals have a patient safety evaluation system as defined by the PSO regulations.

ECRI Institute PSO services are based on applied research, interactive tools, a learning network, and a reporting platform. To enable healthcare providers to learn from adverse events, and to improve patient care, the PSO provides incident report collection and analysis. The reporting platform provides a secure way for ECRI Institute PSO to accept data from providers using any electronic system, as well as to provide a Web-based, intuitive interface for data entry.

For information on the partnership, or to learn about working with ECRI Institute PSO, visit the ECRI website.

To learn more about PSOs, or to view an updated directory of all listed PSOs, visit the AHRQ PSO website.