Patient Safety and Errors Reduction Act

Summary

Patient Safety and Errors Reduction Act - Amends the Public Health Service Act to require the Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to: (1) support research, evaluations and training, and demonstration projects, provide technical assistance, and support partnerships to determine the causes of medical errors and other threats to the quality and safety of patient care; (2) identify and evaluate interventions and strategies for preventing or reducing such errors and threats; (3) develop reporting requirements to provide consistency throughout the errors reporting system; (4) develop approaches for the clinical management of complications from such errors; and (5) establish mechanisms for the rapid dissemination of identified interventions and strategies for which there is scientific evidence of effectiveness. Requires the Director to establish a Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety to: (1) assist the Director in carrying out the preceding requirements; (2) provide national leadership for research and initiatives to improve the quality and safety of patient care; (3) develop public-private sector partnerships to improve such care; and (4) serve as a national resource for research and learning from medical errors. Specifies other Center duties. Requires the Director, to enhance the ability of the U.S. health care community to learn from medical errors and close calls, to take certain steps to increase scientific knowledge with respect to such errors and error reporting systems, including developing a confidential national safety database of medical errors reports to be known as the National Patient Safety Database. Permits reports of medical errors and close calls in the database to be used only for research to improve the quality and safety of patient care. Requires the Director to: (1) identify public and private sector patient safety reporting systems and build scientific knowledge regarding those systems and related topics; (2) support training initiatives to build the capacity of the U.S. health care community to analyze patient safety data and to act on such data to improve patient safety; and (3) recommend strategies for measuring and evaluating the national progress made in implementing safe practices identified by the Center and through a voluntary reporting system. Provides for certification of entities that collect and analyze information on medical errors and to collaborate with health care providers in collecting information about, or evaluating, certain medical events (certain adverse events or close calls, including those that involve death or injury, associated with the provision of health care). Requires such entities to report periodically to the Director. Provides for termination of certifications after three years, with renewals at the Director's discretion. Sets forth system requirements for providers of health services that elect to participate in a medical error reporting system. Prescribes confidentiality requirements for information regarding medical events collected pursuant to this Act. Authorizes appropriations.

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3 official files

• Introduced in Senate (text)

  Introduced in Senate · EN · 15 June 2000

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• Introduced in Senate (PDF)

  Introduced in Senate · EN · 15 June 2000

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• Introduced in Senate

  summary · EN · 15 June 2000

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