Rocky Mountain Patient Safety Organization Selects ECRI Institute PSO for Patient Safety Reporting and Analysis

Program designed to improve the quality of care in Colorado and the region.

Plymouth Meeting, PA, and Greenwood Village, CO, May 27, 2010 — Colorado hospitals will now be able to share critical information and learn from one another’s experiences like never before as The Rocky Mountain Patient Safety Organization (RMPSO), one of the first federally qualified Patient Safety Organizations (PSO), becomes operational in Colorado. RMPSO announced that it has selected ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization to provide patient safety services and will support RMPSO through a patient safety data collection and reporting system. In addition, ECRI will analyze adverse events and other information from participating hospitals and health systems, long-term care facilities, ambulatory surgery centers, and home health and physician providers.

“Improving the quality of healthcare, across the continuum of care in Colorado and across the region, is our top priority,” says Donna Kusuda, director, Rocky Mountain Patient Safety Organization. “We selected ECRI Institute PSO because of their proven experience in collecting and analyzing adverse events and near misses and for the strong actionable guidance that underpins their reports,” Kusuda adds.

The Rocky Mountain Patient Safety Organization will offer member education and training Web conferences beginning in late May 2010.
“Two years ago, the Colorado Hospital Association (CHA) took the lead in establishing a PSO in Colorado by filing for federal approval,” said Steven J. Summer, CEO, Colorado Hospital Association. “The mission of the RMPSO is to collect consequential data, analyze and disseminate lessons learned and best practices to reduce adverse events—thus improving the quality of care in Colorado and across the region.”

The ECRI Institute Patient Safety 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.

“We commend the RMPSO for taking a strong leadership role in improving patient safety through the sharing of data. We look forward to providing the analyses and data to help them learn from and reduce adverse events,” said Ronni Solomon, executive vice president and general counsel, ECRI Institute.

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 Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and National Quality Forum (NQF) serious reportable events. The reporting platform is powered by rL Solutions, a leading software company with deep experience in adverse event reporting.

About the Rocky Mountain PSO
The Rocky Mountain Patient Safety Organization (RMPSO) was listed as a Patient Safety Organization (PSO) by the Department of Health and Human Services on January 21, 2009. Currently, RMPSO is a component PSO under the Colorado Center for the Advancement of Patient Safety, a 501(c) (3) subsidiary of the Colorado Hospital Association. The goal of the RMPSO is to engage providers at all levels of care to improve patient safety through sharing of data, lessons learned and best practices to reduce adverse events, thus improving the quality of care across the entire continuum in Colorado and the region. For more information, visit www.rmpso.org.

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.