The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) has listed the GE-MERS
National Patient Safety Organization (GE PSO) as part of the Agency
for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) Patient Safety
Organization (PSO) program. With this federal certification, GE
Healthcare Performance Solutions joins leading healthcare
organizations across the U.S. working to minimize risks in patient care.
GE’s PSO provides its members a single common medical event reporting
platform, with comprehensive data analytics and advisory support to
identify the root causes of risk, and help hospitals make lasting safety
improvements. With 16 founding members, the GE PSO is one of the largest
national PSO’s with plans to expand and include additional hospitals
across the U.S.
“Over a decade has passed since the Institute of Medicine made an
influential call to decrease the number of costly medical errors that
kill nearly 100,000 Americans each year; however, event-reporting
limitations have often impeded progress toward this goal,” said Jan De
Witte, President and CEO, GE Healthcare Performance Solutions. “Our
Performance Solutions business has the elements necessary – reporting,
analytics and advisory – to help hospitals make measurable and lasting
improvements in patient safety. Performance Solutions has a long term
commitment to helping the healthcare industry reduce cost, improve
quality and increase access and we will continue to invest in new
technology capabilities and programs that improve overall performance.”
“We are pleased that the GE PSO has earned this designation,” said
Director of Health, Rhode Island, David R. Gifford, MD, MPH. “As one of
the founding members of the GE PSO, Rhode Island hospitals have shown
tireless dedication to patient safety and quality improvement. This
designation will allow our hospitals to collect information, while
continuously reviewing and evaluating policies and standards, and as a
result, improve patient care in the state.”
Established by Congress in 2005, PSOs serve as independent, external
entities that collect, analyze and aggregate information on patient
safety events. With this designation, the GE
PSO will provide confidential advice to health care providers
seeking to understand and minimize the risks in delivering patient care.
Importantly, PSOs are evaluated by the quality of the data collected and
the insights provided. GE’s PSO distinguishes itself by the way it
captures data and analyzes it. The data is captured through MERS,
a fourth generation web based event reporting system that is used by all
of the members. MERS enables members to not only capture more event
reports and near misses, but to also capture more data in each report.
The result is a powerful dataset that is aggregated and protected in the
PSO.
GE’s PSO has partnered with SAS Institute Inc. to create the
infrastructure necessary to de-identify and analyze the data captured
through MERS. SAS’ world-renowned analytical tools and expertise in data
integration will enable the GE PSO to identify and share insights with
the membership.
GE’s PSO will provide insights to hospital administrators, providers,
and policymakers to assist them in identifying and isolating factors
that contribute to medical errors. In particular, the PSO will focus on
the complex root causes of risk. For example, what environmental factors
should be monitored to reduce risk for a certain type of procedure? How
have some members been successful at reducing rates of ventilator
associated pneumonia? Why have others been less successful?
“Many state governments and insurance companies require hospitals to
report patient safety incidents, but the programs aren’t generally
structured to offer follow-up trend information or process improvement
support,” said Kathy Martin, Managing Director, GE PSO, GE Healthcare
Performance Solutions. “What sets GE’s PSO apart is its ability to
pinpoint the risks of patient harm. We’ve built the PSO to create new
knowledge by first providing every member with a common event reporting
system that captures data in the richest possible manner. Then, we’ve
organized the database so that we can apply SAS tools and the expertise
of our members to find those critical insights. The risks of harm are
systemic, myriad, and complex. We believe this approach will enable us
to understand them and help move our clients towards a patient safe
culture.”
“Hospitals in Rhode Island have shown tireless dedication to patient
safety and quality improvement,” said Ed Quinlan, president, Hospital
Association of Rhode Island. “Our involvement of a patient safety
organization is another in a series of examples of hospitals committing
to collaborate and share best practices to improve care. We look forward
to working with the GE PSO to use cutting-edge technology and process
improvements to address this critical issue.”
About GE Healthcare:
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and
services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise
in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics,
patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical
manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance
solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more
people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with
healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change
necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare
systems.
Our “healthymagination” vision for the future invites the world to join
us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on
reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the
world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of
General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees
are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in
more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit
our website at www.gehealthcare.com.
For our latest news, please visit http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com.
About The Hospital Association Of Rhode Island:
The Hospital Association of Rhode Island (HARI) is a statewide trade
organization that assists member hospitals in serving the health care
needs of Rhode Island, through advocacy, representation, education and
services. HARI represents ten hospitals in the state of Rhode Island
that deliver comprehensive, high quality healthcare services to the
people of Rhode Island and southeastern New England.
About SAS:
SAS is the leader in business analytics software and services, and the
largest independent vendor in the business intelligence market. Through
innovative solutions delivered within an integrated framework, SAS helps
customers at more than 50,000 sites improve performance and deliver
value by making better decisions faster. Since 1976 SAS has been giving
customers around the world THE POWER TO KNOW®.
About MERS:
MERS International, originally founded in the Netherlands with a New
York-based U.S. subsidiary, is dedicated to improving patient care
through innovative, information-based patient safety solutions. MERS
International is the exclusive licensee of a robust and proven medical
event reporting system (MERS), initially developed at Columbia
University, that is now installed at over 40 healthcare facilities
throughout the United States. Through the systemic collection,
investigation, communication, reporting and monitoring of information
about near miss and actual events, MERS empowers healthcare
professionals and organizations to improve patient safety and quality of
care.
1 Statistics according to the November 1999 Institute of
Medicine (IOM) “To Err is Human” report
Business Wire
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Last updated on: 10/02/2011 16:00:02
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