ECRI Institute PSO selected to provide patient safety data to MCIC Vermont

ECRI Institute Patient Safety Organization (PSO) has been selected to provide patient safety collection, analysis, and reporting services to MCIC Vermont, Inc. PSO, a component entity of MCIC Vermont (A Reciprocal Risk Retention Group) (MCIC). MCIC is a specialty insurance company which provides medical professional and general liability insurance coverage, loss prevention, and patient safety and risk management services to its subscribers and their various affiliated entities.

ECRI Institute PSO will collect and analyze adverse events and other patient safety data submitted by participating academic medical centers, hospitals, health systems, and physician groups.

Through this effort, MCIC VT PSO aims to reduce the risk of adverse events, unintended outcomes, and malpractice claims while helping to increase patient safety at its insured institutions.

"MCIC views this partnership as a great opportunity for shared learning to improve patient safety for our subscribers under the protective umbrella of the PSO," says Christine McMullan, vice president for loss prevention and patient safety, MCIC VT PSO.

"An important element of MCIC's mission is to support safer patient care and to help generate better outcomes and greater patient and provider satisfaction. We applaud the steps they are taking and look forward to supporting their PSO," states Ronni Solomon, JD, executive vice president and general counsel, ECRI Institute.

MCIC has a longstanding working relationship with ECRI Institute in providing evidence-based risk management and patient safety resources, risk assessment tools, and education programs to it insureds.

The ECRI Institute Patient Safety analytics team has experience handling more than 2 million adverse event reports. Their multidisciplinary staff includes physicians; nurses; biomedical engineers; instructional designers; quality, legal, and risk management professionals; individuals with safety, education, science, and engineering backgrounds; statisticians and data analysts; and information technology experts.

ECRI Institute PSO services are based on applied research, interactive tools, a learning network, and a reporting platform. 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. The reporting platform provides a secure way for ECRI Institute PSO to accept data from providers using any electronic system, as well as to provide a Web-based, intuitive interface for data entry.