ABOUT US
The Tennessee Center for Patient Safety is a federally-certified patient safety organization (PSO) by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the federal Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (PSQIA). The TCPS program and services are tailored to meet specific needs of Tennessee hospitals. With the approval of the THA Board of Directors, the TCPS created a PSO program dedicated to collecting, aggregating and analyzing serious patient safety events within a protected environment. In the PSO program, providers will be able to voluntarily share serious adverse event quality and patient safety information, learn from aggregate and facility-specific root cause analyses and best practices, and protect patients from harm through shared learning.
HOW TO JOIN
Hospitals that wish to participate in the PSO Program of the TCPS, must sign a separate PSO Membership Agreement and pay an annual fee based upon inpatient discharges ranging from $1,200 to $12,600 per facility (system discounts available). Tennessee based regional healthcare systems may join as a system, including hospitals located in border states. Please contact Mary Ellen Mooney at THA, 615-401-7473,
mmooney@tha.com.
WHY JOIN
The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 establishes a framework by which doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers may voluntarily report information on a privileged and confidential basis regarding patient safety events and quality of care issues. The Patient Safety Act enables providers to:
Learn
By collecting, aggregating and analyzing serious adverse event and near miss type patient safety data, TCPS PSO program will be able to identify common causes and patterns that lie at the root of patient harm and offer evidence based solutions and best practices to reduce or prevent future occurrences and improve quality and patient safety.
Protect
In exchange for the voluntary sharing of patient safety and quality of care information, the PSQIA affords participants with two types of legal protection:
1) Confidentiality. Pursuant to 42 CFR § 3.206 patient safety work product is confidential and shall not be disclosed.
2) Privilege. Pursuant to 42 CFR §3.204 patient safety work product is privileged and is not subject to:
(a) Federal, State, local, or Tribal civil, criminal, or administrative subpoena or order, including in a Federal, State, local, or Tribal civil or administrative disciplinary proceeding against a provider;
(b) discovery in connection with a Federal, State, local, or Tribal civil, criminal, or administrative proceeding, including in a Federal, State, local, or Tribal civil or administrative disciplinary proceeding against a provider;
(c) disclosure pursuant to section 552 of Title 5, United States Code (commonly known as the Freedom of Information Act) or any other similar Federal, State, local, or Tribal law;
(d) admission as evidence in any Federal, State, local, or Tribal governmental civil proceeding, criminal proceeding, administrative rulemaking proceeding, or administrative adjudicatory proceeding, including any such proceeding against a provider; or
(e) admission in a professional disciplinary proceeding of a professional disciplinary body
established or specifically authorized under State law.
Benefit
Through the PSO services, the TCPS has the capacity to identify areas for improvement and promote best practices designed to reduce or eliminate patient harm on a large scale basis throughout Tennessee.
In addition to seizing the opportunity to make improvements in the quality of healthcare provided in the State, there are several developments in the law and other considerations, which may make participation even more beneficial.
- In 2009, legislation that amended the mandatory list of reportable adverse events that healthcare facilities are required to report to the Tennessee Department of Health (TDOH) was passed by the Tennessee General Assembly. With the amendment of the statute, facilities now are only required to report incidents of abuse, neglect, misappropriation and incidents resulting in the disruption of the delivery of healthcare services. Since 2002, hospitals had reported an extensive list of patient harm events under the Tennessee Health Data Reporting Act and had developed systems within their facilities to ensure compliance. Through the TCPS PSO, hospitals can submit, on a voluntary basis, similar adverse event data and receive desired analysis and feedback required to improve patient safety and quality of healthcare.
- In May 2010, the Tennessee Supreme Court issued two court opinions that limited the state peer review privilege. Under these cases, the scope of what is considered privileged in a peer review committee is limited to documents prepared at the direction of the peer review committee as part of a proceeding involving a physician’s professional conduct, competence or ability to practice medicine. Hospitals can no longer assume that all records arising from their peer review committee are privileged. The TCPS PSO program gives hospitals an opportunity to protect certain data as patient safety work product related to monitoring and improving quality and patient safety and permits them to share sensitive information relating to patient safety events, in a privileged and confidential manner, with the goal of improving patient safety and the quality of care.
- Participation may help to proactively position hospitals for health care reform legislation requirements, future reimbursement models and transparency initiatives. By example, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA), included in its health reform reimbursement initiatives two measures relative to PSOs. Section 399KK of the PPACA provides that PSOs will work with hospitals with high severity adjusted readmission rates. Section 1311 of the PPACA requires qualified health plans under the state insurance exchanges to contract beginning on January 1, 2015 with a hospital greater than 50 beds only if such hospital utilizes a patient safety evaluation system, essentially requiring contracted hospitals to participate in a PSO.
- Lastly, insurers, payers, and employers may view participation in the activities of a patient safety organization favorably in business transactions.