HARRISBURG: Dr. Robert Muscalus, Pennsylvania’s Physician General and chair of the state’s Patient Safety Authority, received a 2004 Healthcare IT Innovator Award from Healthcare Informatics for his leadership in guiding the development and implementation of Pennsylvania’s Patient Safety Reporting System (PA-PSRS).

Healthcare Informatics, published by The McGraw-Hill Companies, provides news about information technology for executives and managers in the healthcare industry through a monthly magazine, website and weekly e-newsletter. The IT Innovator Award was announced in the September 2004 issue of the publications.

Muscalus is one of nine winners chosen for this year’s award. Nominees for the award must be a healthcare provider or on the staff of a government institution, payer organization or nonprofit foundation. They must have displayed excellence and leadership in conceiving, implementing, promoting, championing or otherwise supporting an IT initiative.

Muscalus credits winning the Third Annual Healthcare Innovator’s Award to the vision of the Patient Safety Authority and the comprehensiveness of the PA-PSRS system.

“The Authority’s Board was closely involved in all stages of the project’s development, from early conceptual design and vendor selection to system implementation,” Muscalus said. “Equally important, the Authority’s staff was fully engaged in all facets of this complex and comprehensive IT project. More than anyone, they ‘lived and breathed’ PA-PSRS over much of the past year. Much of the success of this initiative is due to their efforts.”

The Patient Safety Authority developed PA-PSRS (pronounced “PAY-sirs”) in response to Act 13 of 2002, which charged the Authority with taking steps to reduce and eliminate medical errors by identifying problems and recommending solutions that promote patient safety. Pennsylvania is the first state in the country to require the reporting of both actual events and “near-misses.” All Pennsylvania-licensed hospitals, ambulatory surgical facilities and birthing centers began reporting through the PA-PSRS system in June.

 “By collecting near-misses, PA-PSRS stands out among most other medical error reporting systems,” Muscalus noted. “We believe that in capturing near-misses we will be able to prevent more serious events from happening in the future and thus reduce medical errors.”

The PA-PSRS program receives and tabulates reports and analyzes data to identify trends and suggest improvements to enhance patient safety. All information submitted through PA-PSRS is confidential, and no information about individual facilities or providers will be made public. An important component of PA-PSRS is a software program that allows facilities to generate reports specific to their individual facility. Facility managers can use these reports for their internal quality improvement and patient safety activities.

“The ultimate success of this reporting system will not be found solely in the data collected,” Muscalus concluded. “Rather, improved patient safety will be the result of actions taken by individual facilities in response to what they learn through PA-PSRS.”

The Patient Safety Authority is an independent state agency created by Act 13 of 2002, the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error (“Mcare”) Act. The Authority operates under an 11-member Board. Under the Act, all Pennsylvania-licensed hospitals, birthing centers and ambulatory surgical facilities are required to report what the Act defines as “serious events” and “incidents” to the Authority. More than 400 healthcare facilities are subject to Act 13 reporting requirements.

PA-PSRS is a secure, web-based system developed for the Authority under contract with ECRI, a Pennsylvania-based independent, non-profit health services research agency, in partnership with EDS, a leading international, information technology firm, and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), also a Pennsylvania-based, non-profit health research organization.

More information about Healthcare Informatics and the IT Innovators Award are available at www.healthcare-informatics.com. For additional information about the Patient Safety Authority or the PA-PSRS program, visit its website at www.patientsafetyauthority.org.

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