The Patient Safety Task Force was established to coordinate the integration of data collection on medical errors and adverse events, coordinate research and analysis efforts, and promote collaboration within the Department of Health and Human Services to improve healthcare quality by preventing complications and injuries associated with healthcare delivery.
In discussing how to reduce the incidence of error as described in the Institute of Medicine's (IOM's) 1999 report To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) realized the importance of coordinating existing and planned reporting systems, to establish a more useful database for information on patient safety and medical errors that is simpler to use and which reduces the burden of reporting on healthcare facilities and providers.
Federal agencies, States, accrediting bodies, and other organizations are already collecting data that can provide important insights into patient safety and the prevention of medical errors, and many of these groups have plans to expand their data collection systems independently. By coordinating these data collection initiatives, the Patient Safety Task Force will reduce the duplication of effort and the unnecessary burden on those who are providing information to these systems, thus encouraging more complete and comprehensive reporting of data.
To facilitate this coordination, HHS has established a Patient Safety Task Force to:
The activities of the Patient Safety Task Force will contribute to the Nation's efforts in reducing the number of medical errors.
The Patient Safety Task Force will serve as a special task force under the HHS Secretary's Quality Improvement Initiative. The Patient Safety Task Force consists of representatives from:
The mission of the Task Force is to partner with other Federal agencies, States, and private-sector organizations to develop information that will help to avert risks to patients. The Task Force will:
The Patient Safety Task Force will work to eliminate the barriers to partnership and collaboration. A goal of this effort is to minimize the burden of reporting adverse events and errors by supporting the development of:
The Patient Safety Task Force will spearhead the development of a coordinated system for collecting data to reduce patient risk. Collection of two kinds of data is currently anticipated:
To ensure minimal burden, the coordinated data collection system should:
Patient safety programs will build on the information gained from the national database and other resources and will identify and promote practices that prevent errors and protect patients. These programs will include:
This information is essential to ensure a scientific basis for strategies and tools to reduce errors and adverse events, and minimize their impact on patients if they do occur. Lessons learned from these projects will be widely disseminated to other facilities through CMS's Peer Review Organizations (PROs) and other mechanisms.
To achieve its mission, the Task Force will create:
To obtain more information about the Patient Safety Task Force and its activities, contact:
James B. Battles, Ph.D.
Senior Service Fellow for Patient Safety
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
540 Gaither Road
Rockville, MD 20850
(301) 427-1332 voice
(301) 427-1341 fax
JBattles@ahrq.gov
To obtain more information about specific programs at participating agencies, contact the following agency representatives:
AHRQ
Dan Stryer, M.D.
Acting Director, Center for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
540 Gaither Road
Rockville, MD 20850
(301) 427-1300 voice
DStryer@ahrq.gov
CDC
Steven L. Solomon, M.D.
Acting Director, Division of Health Care Quality Promotion
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Road
Mail Stop A-07
Atlanta, GA 30333
(404) 498-1175
ssolomon@cdc.gov
FDA
Chris Bechtel R.N., M.S.N.
Science Policy Analyst
Office of Executive Programs
CDER/FDA
HFD-006 c/o Parklawn Building
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, MD 20857
(301) 594-5458
bechtelc@cder.fda.gov
CMS
Stephen F. Jencks, M.D., M.P.H.
Director, Quality Improvement Group
Office of Clinical Standards and Quality
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Mail Stop S3-02-01
7500 Security Blvd.
Baltimore, MD 21244-1850
(410) 786-6508
SJencks@hcfa.gov
Current as of July 2003
Internet Citation:
Patient Safety Task Force. Fact Sheet. July 2003. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/taskforce/psfactst.htm
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