ECRI Institute PSO Announces Release of Updated Patient Safety Event Collection and Reporting System

New standardized system, compliant with AHRQ Common Formats Version 1.1, includes HIT reporting

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., April 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization (PSO) has released a new version of its adverse event collection and reporting system. This release is fully compliant with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Common Formats Version 1.1 and includes the latest formats for health information technology (HIT) reporting.

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ECRI Institute has continued to update and improve its web-based patient safety reporting system since first operating as an AHRQ-certified PSO. ECRI Institute PSO's reporting system, designed to capture both near misses and serious adverse events, currently has more than 100,000 events in its database.

"We are pleased to be able to provide this update to our members so quickly. This revision, which includes AHRQ's HIT enhancement, reflects a growing area of importance in patient safety," says Karen Zimmer, MD, MPH, medical director, ECRI Institute PSO. "Analysis of the events received through our event collection and reporting system helps ECRI Institute PSO share the most important patient safety lessons with our members and the public."

This update also incorporates enhancements to the device-related forms based on ECRI Institute's expertise in this key area. ECRI Institute PSO collects, analyzes, and addresses all types of events from a range of clinical specialties and healthcare settings across the country.

"ECRI Institute PSO encourages IT vendors to map to the Common Formats to accelerate sharing, aggregation and learning," says Barbara G. Rebold, RN, MS, CPHQ, director of operations, ECRI Institute PSO. "This allows PSOs and AHRQ to analyze and report information for improvement nationally."

ECRI Institute PSO member organizations can report manually or, like many others, import data from their existing adverse event reporting systems to the ECRI Institute PSO system. Members receive Guidance for Patient Safety toolkits, newsletters and user group meetings, INsight Assessment surveys, and much more. ECRI Institute PSO also shares these learnings publicly through free resources, such as PSO Monthly Briefs.

For information about the ECRI Institute PSO, visit www.ecri.org/pso, e-mail pso@ecri.org, call (610) 825-6000, ext. 5389, or write to us at 5200 Butler Pike, Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462. For further information on mapping to ECRI Institute PSO, vendor should contact pso@ecri.org.

About ECRI Institute
For 44 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 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. ECRI Institute 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. For more information, visit www.ecri.org. Find ECRI Institute on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ECRIInstitute) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/ECRI_Institute).

SOURCE ECRI Institute