Notwithstanding their entrance into the healthcare world and lexicon 15 years ago, Patient Safety Organizations continue to represent a source of uncertainty, confusion and frustration with respect to their promise of sweeping confidentiality protection for provider efforts to analyze system errors.
Notwithstanding their entrance into the healthcare world and lexicon 15 years ago, Patient Safety Organizations (“PSOs”) continue to represent a source of uncertainty, confusion and frustration with respect to their promise of sweeping confidentiality protection for provider efforts to analyze system errors. Not surprisingly, a recent report from the Office of the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services noted that 89% of PSOs offer at least one learning-based service such as webinars, in-person training or technical assistance.
This article provides: (a) an overview of the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (“PSQIA”); (b) the competing legal interests at work when providers seek to invoke confidentiality protection included in the PSQIA; (c) relevant questions for providers to ask as they assess if they have an adequate patient safety system to protect their confidentiality interests, or whether training and further refinement of systems would prove helpful; and (d) practice tips to help providers avoid inadequate procedures and the pitfalls they cause.
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Source: Medcity News