ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO

Importance of a culture of safety across the spectrum of care

Patient harm is the 14th leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally. Adverse events occur in nearly 24% of hospital admissions, and approximately 23% of the events are preventable.

Numerous studies show a link between a positive safety culture—where safety is a shared priority—and improved patient safety within a healthcare organization. The evidence is so convincing that the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) highlights that leadership support and prioritization of a safety culture is essential to achieve change.

The term "safety culture" has been defined by various organizations. Generally, a safety culture is viewed as an organization's shared perceptions, beliefs, values, and attitudes that combine to create a commitment to safety and an effort to minimize harm (Weaver et al.). In the simplest of terms, a safety culture is the combination of attitudes and behaviors toward patient safety that are conveyed when walking into a health facility.

An organization whose leaders embrace a safety culture makes safety its number one priority. Leaders demonstrate their commitment by supporting the organization to learn about errors and near misses, investigate errors to understand their root causes, develop strategies to prevent error recurrence, and share the lessons learned with staff so they recognize the value of reporting their concerns.

As your health system, long term care facility, ambulatory care center, medical office, or pharmacy works to drive patient safety improvement, ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Patient Safety Organization (PSO) has the patient safety expertise, guidance, and broad subject matter knowledge to help you build a culture of safety.

ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO

ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO is listed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) as a Patient Safety Organization, beginning in 2008. PSOs provide privileged protection for patient safety work per the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (the “Patient Safety Act”).

Our safety experts have studied events from our extensive adverse events and near-misses database reported from over 1,300 healthcare providers across acute, ambulatory, and senior care to develop guidance for safety improvements.

Bringing together the patient safety, risk, and quality expertise of ECRI and ISMP’s extensive experience in determining the system-based causes of medication errors and driving change under one Patient Safety Organization enables our members to better address all causes of incidents, near-misses, or unsafe conditions.

As a leader in patient safety, ECRI and the ISMP PSO brings up-to-date information and real-time guidance based on our broad adverse event reporting system to assure healthcare leaders across the continuum of care that they’re making the best decisions.

You can join our PSO or tap into our resources to support your own PSO. Either way, we deliver value to members through a collaborative approach spanning from data and evidence collection and analysis to actionable advice on best practices and process redesign.

Data-driven insights help leaders meet national patient safety goals

ECRI and the ISMP PSO maintains one of the largest patient safety reporting and learning systems—collecting and analyzing millions of patient safety events across 90% of the United States. Our mapping services automatically route adverse event information from members to the PSO.

Our analysts work with members to conduct analyses, identify trends, research specific topics, pinpoint solutions, and convert these findings into actionable reports. With clear insights into recommended practices and priorities, our highly engaged safety analysts help members proactively address safety risks across all care settings.

Unparalleled support to help you build a learning system and a culture of safety

The team of analysts, most of whom are former frontline nurses and risk managers with decades of real-world experience, serve as safety coaches—providing tailored support as you enhance your patient culture of safety program and work to quickly resolve pressing issues.

Your analyst will guide you to strengthen your learning system by identifying, acting on, and learning from the root causes of adverse events or near-misses. Custom research, data analysis, action plans, and demonstrated best practices can help you achieve your patient safety improvement goals.

Our members have told me, ‘I joined for the protections but find the feedback to be the most useful.’

Easy to use patient safety dashboard help you identify issues

While our big-picture analyses help identify broad trends and best practices, our advanced dashboard reporting empowers you to take a closer look at your organization’s own patient safety data by facility or system.

The dashboard is a powerful tool for identifying and addressing patient safety issues—from analyzing adverse event data and comparing trends to finding opportunities for improvement. It also helps in comparing your performance against a specific group or the national average.

Keep driving patient safety improvement 

Membership in ECRI and the ISMP PSO gives you access to: 

1. Easy-to-use adverse event reporting system with mapping capabilities to streamline and simplify your data submission for protections  
2. Unparalleled expert support to enhance your safety efforts and analysis to identify critical issues 
3. Collaboration opportunities to hear from and learn from other healthcare providers tackling challenging safety issues
4. Online toolkits—including self-assessment questionnaires and policy/procedure examples—to help address medication safety, risk management, patient safety, and worker safety challenges
5. Continuing education covering patient and medication safety, risk management, and compliance to help you stay current on industry changes, regulatory updates, and device problems
6. Regular guidance to proactively address issues through our Health System Risk Management publication 

Interested in learning more?

Setup a consultation with an ECRI expert to learn more about how to drive patient safety improvement with ECRI and the ISMP PSO.