Home -> Community News -> HHS Establishes New System For Collecting Patient Safety Data
HHS on Patient Safety Reporting
HHS MOVES FORWARD TO ESTABLISH NEW SYSTEM FOR COLLECTING PATIENT
SAFETY DATA
HHS
Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today [November 25, 2002] announced a $5.9
million contract to improve the department's collection and reporting of
patient safety data.
The
two-year contract will lead to the development of a new Web-based system that
will integrate and simplify existing systems now operated by several HHS
agencies to improve reporting and make the systems easier for frontline
medical care providers to use.
"It
is important that we reduce the burdens that providers face today in
reporting information on patient safety," Secretary Thompson said."If we can achieve that goal, then we
can more easily and quickly collect that information and get it to the people
who can use it to improve the quality and safety of the care all Americans
receive."
HHS
presently operates a number of systems to collect information that helps to
monitor health care safety; compliance with existing regulations on blood
products, devices, drugs; and the safety of patients in Medicare-funded
institutions.This contract, awarded
through the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), will lead to
the development of a system to link existing reporting systems and integrate
data from the National Healthcare Safety Network, operated by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the drug, biologics, vaccine and
devices adverse events reporting systems that receive reports from doctors,
nurses and other healthcare providers, run by the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA).
The
contract represents a significant step towards the goal of a more complete
systems integration, automated data reporting and standards-based solution
for health data exchange.The common
system will ultimately include all safety-related systems operated by the
CDC, the FDA and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).Together with AHRQ, these agencies
comprise the HHS Patient Safety Task Force, established by Secretary Thompson
to study how to implement a user-friendly internet-based patient safety
reporting format.
"Our
agencies are working together to integrate existing data collection systems
on medical errors to improve the quality and safety of health care in
America," said AHRQ's acting director Carolyn Clancy, M.D."It is vitally important to learn as
much as we can about how errors occur and get that information to the people
in the health care system who can use it to improve services."
The
contract, awarded to the KEVRIC Company, Inc., of Silver Spring, Md., a
small, women-owned business, is for the first phase of the department's
efforts to address Secretary Thompson's mandate to integrate existing data
collection systems.The project
ultimately would be expanded to include non-HHS entities such as state health
departments, accrediting entities such as the Joint Commission for the
Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, the Department of Defense, the
Department of Veteran's Affairs and systems in other countries such as the
United Kingdom.
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