Foundation News

Patient Safety Organization

The Texas Hospital Association and the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council Education and Research Foundation (Foundation) are collaborating to create and certify a statewide Patient Safety Organization (PSO) as a separate, stand-alone entity to begin operations in early 2010. To launch the PSO, a minimum of 40 hospitals must commit to participate as 'charter' hospitals.

PSOs are focused on reducing adverse events and improving health care quality and safety. PSOs were authorized as part of the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005. The concept is to provide repositories for clinicians and health care organizations to voluntarily report and share data on patient safety events, enabling similar providers to compare data on similar events. This national network of "patient safety databases" uses common reporting formats to ensure consistency with each PSO's data published annually in AHRQ National Health Quality/Disparities Reports.

The goal is to secure letters of intent to participate from at least 40 hospitals by October 2009, with operations to launch in first quarter 2010.

For additional information, please read this Fact Sheet or view this PowerPoint presentation. An audio file is available here.

For questions, please contact the Foundation at 972-717-4279.