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Patient safety bill signed into law

Physician Practice Advisor, August 3, 2005

President Bush signed legislation on Friday to create an error reporting database that will be used to reduce medical errors, the Chicago Tribune reported. The database will be immune from subpoenas and reporting will be voluntary.

Patient safety organizations, doctors, and hospitals hope to use the database to improve the quality of medical care and identify medical error trends. The errors will be reported to patient safety organizations who will then compile the data and analyze trends. Results will then be used to develop the "best practices" for improving the quality of care, the Tribune reported. In developing these reports, patients and healthcare providers will be protected from being identified.

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JAHCO) may create a subsidary patient safety organization that would be involved in the error-reporting process. The subsidary would have to be walled off from the other elements of JAHCO to prevent information from being used illegaly in the accreditation process, the Tribune reported.

For the full Chicago Tribune article, click here.

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