QPSC, University of Miami agree to jointly study national database of patient incidents

The Quantros Patient Safety Center (QPSC) and the University of Miami (UM-JMH Center for Patient Safety) have agreed to jointly study the QPSC national database of patient incidents and evaluate its potential for helping predict and prevent certain types of hospital incidents. As a federally certified Patient Safety Organization (PSO), QPSC affords participating healthcare organizations federal protection for their safety event data and associated documentation. With more than 2.0 million patient safety incidents reported in more than 800 hospitals, the QPSC database is believed to be the largest nationwide collection of patient incident data.

"We're excited to find what we believe to be national and even international relevance between our collected data and the reduction or elimination of patient safety events," says Ali Rashidee, MD, MS, Executive Director of Safety and Risk Management for Quantros and Co-Principal Investigator of the study. "This partnership aims to find how to apply our data in meaningful ways, benefiting everyone from doctors to nurses to high-level executives."

Researchers from Quantros and the University of Miami will analyze the QPSC patient incident data and identify how it can be used to support predictive modeling for a variety of patient safety events. "Based on their findings, Quantros and University of Miami will create and disseminate 'Gold Standard' best practice methods designed to improve data reporting and event management processes," said Howard Gitlow, Ph.D., Professor of Management Science at the University of Miami School of Business Administration and Co-Principal Investigator of this study.

"Our ultimate goal is to protect patients from all preventable medical errors by 2020, thus advancing quality and safety in healthcare to a new, far more acceptable level," said David J. Birnbach, MD, MPH, Co-Principal Investigator of the study and Director of the UM-JMH Center for Patient Safety and a professor of Anesthesiology and Public Health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "The best way to achieve that objective is to use the best data resources available to drive improvements throughout the continuum of patient care."

Dr. Gerard Livaudais, Executive Vice President of Product Management at Quantros concurs: "With a large data set and critical questions to answer, the researchers have the potential to identify areas which have never been studied. With PSO protection, patient safety events can now be reviewed in depth, just as NTSB examines airline crashes."