The Patient Safety Authority is an independent state agency created by Act 13 of 2002 to help reduce and eliminate medical errors by identifying problems and recommending solutions that promote patient safety.  The Authority has contracted with ECRI, a Pennsylvania-based non-profit health services research agency, to develop and implement the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System (PA-PSRS, pronounced PAY-sirs), a confidential, web-based system designed to receive reports of serious events and incidents from Pennsylvania’s hospitals, birthing centers and ambulatory surgical centers.   Starting in mid-November 2003, 22 healthcare facilities, representing a crosssection of Pennsylvania’s healthcare institutions, have been voluntarily participating in a test phase of the PA-PSRS system prior to a statewide rollout.  During Phase 1, they have submitted more than 2,500 reports reflecting a variety of events that resulted in actual or potential harm to patients.  Events submitted during the test phase can be broken down into the following broad categories:

The above statistics were submitted as part of a test phase of the PA-PSRS system. While they are representative of the types of events submitted by healthcare facilities in Pennsylvania, as test data their statistical validity cannot be confirmed.