Patient Safety Organizations (PSOs) are new entities that will be recognized through a proposed rule making by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). PSOs will contract with hospitals to receive and analyze a variety of patient safety events* with the ultimate purpose of making recommendations to the client hospital and hospitals at large with respect to safety improvements. PSOs will also integrate their individual patient safety event data to provide the benefit of a wider view of important events. A key feature of the PSO concept is protection of patient safety work product from disclosure. It is also important to note that provider participation in the PSO process is voluntary—at least for now.

The proposed rule establishing PSOs can be found at:

http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/ContentViewer?objectId=09000064803acce8&disposition=attachment&contentType=html

The AHRQ has established a web site for PSOs, with an option to subscribe to PSO e-mail updates:

http://www.pso.ahrq.gov/rulemaking/nprm.htm

The ACCE Healthcare Technology Foundation will monitor the development of the PSO rules and the start of the PSO process. We will also be identifying the proper role of the Foundation which may include being a technical resource to PSOs, advising hospitals on their participation, or even becoming a PSO ourselves!

Watch for further developments.

* patient safety events: An incident that occurred during the delivery of a health care service and that harmed, or could have resulted in harm to, a patient. A patient safety event may include an error of omission or commission, mistake, or malfunction in a patient care process; it may also involve an input to such process (such as a drug or device) or the environment in which such process occurs.