ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO
Report and learn from adverse events in a legally protected environment with the nation’s leading federally certified Patient Safety Organization (PSO)
Real-world solutions to complex patient safety problems
Patient harm is the 14th leading cause of morbidity and mortality globally. In high-income countries, as many as one in 10 patients are harmed while receiving hospital care—and nearly half of these patient safety events are preventable. As your hospital, healthcare organization, long term care facility, or ambulatory care center works to drive patient safety improvement, count on the ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practice PSO.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services formally designated ECRI as a PSO in 2008. Since then, our PSO has studied more than 5 million adverse events and near-misses from over 1,400 healthcare providers across acute, ambulatory, and aging care.
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 one of the one of the largest patient safety entities in the world, ECRI and the ISMP PSO brings up-to-date information and real-time guidance to assure healthcare leaders across the continuum of care that they’re making the best decisions to keep patients and residents safe.
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 in addressing safety, risk, and quality issues
ECRI and the ISMP PSO maintains one of the largest patient safety reporting and learning system—collecting and analyzing millions of patient safety events across 90 percent of the United States. Our mapping services automatically route adverse event information from PSO members to the PSO. Our analysts then comb through events, identify trends, research specific topics, pinpoint solutions, and convert these findings into actionable reports. With clear insights into recommended practices and priorities, ECRI and the ISMP PSO helps our members stay ahead of patient safety challenges.
For risk managers, it’s all about getting the information to change practices and reduce exposure. Hospital risk managers that don’t use ECRI are putting themselves at a distinct disadvantage.
Engage safety experts for custom support
ECRI and the ISMP PSO also offers liaisons, most are former nurses and risk managers with decades of real world experience who can serve as safety coaches—providing tailored support as you adjust your patient safety program and work to quickly resolve pressing issues. Your liaison can guide you in identifying and addressing 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.
Dive deeper with a patient safety dashboard
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 forecasting outcomes and comparing your performance against a specific group or the national average.
Our members have told me, ‘I joined for the protections but find the feedback to be the most useful.’
Keep driving patient safety improvement
Membership in ECRI and the ISMP PSO also gives you access to online toolkits—including self-assessment questionnaires and policy/procedure examples to help address medication safety, risk management, patient safety, and worker safety challenges. In addition, we offer an array of continuing education covering patient and medication safety, risk management, and compliance to help you stay current on industry changes, regulatory updates, and device problems.
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.