ECRI Institute Unveils Comprehensive Patient Safety Organization (PSO...( Reporting systems in-depth analys...),Health

Reporting systems, in-depth analysis, interactive toolkits with solutions and recommendations drawing on experience working with more than 1 million event reports

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Anticipating the release of final regulations for the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005, ECRI Institute, a nonprofit organization that researches best approaches to improve patient care, will preview its new Patient Safety Organization (PSO) services at the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) annual conference, October 2 to 5, 2008.

ECRI Institute, with 40 years of experience operating healthcare problem reporting systems and safety initiatives, will offer PSO membership programs, as well as support for other PSOs. PSO services are based on applied research, interactive tools, a learning network, and a reporting platform powered by rL Solutions. To enable healthcare providers to learn from near misses and adverse events and to improve patient care, the PSO provides incident report collection and analysis; culture-of-safety recommendations; best practices library, advisories and publications; continuing medical education; and ready-to-use toolkits.

"Driving change is the focus of our PSO," says Jeffrey C. Lerner, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, ECRI Institute. "Change means improved patient safety -- even the reimbursement system now recognizes this, but improved care is the true positive return on investment from participation."

The reporting platform is powered by rL Solutions, a leading software company with deep experience in adverse event reporting, whose systems are used by more than 500 healthcare clients, including some of the largest and most forward thinking healthcare organizations in the United States. The platform will provide a secure way for ECRI Institute's PSO to accept data from providers using any electronic system, as well as to provide an intuiti
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