Benefits of Working With a Patient Safety Organization (PSO)

Qualitee 360 is a Patient Safety Organization (PSO). As a PSO, we work with healthcare providers to help them improve patient safety and healthcare quality and encourage a culture of safety. PSOs analyze data voluntarily reported by providers and provide feedback aimed at promoting learning and minimizing patient risk. PSOs were created by the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (the Act). The Act provide privilege and confidentiality protections to specific types of information developed when a provider works with a PSO, such as the data collected and reported to PSOs and the communications and feedback a provider receives from the PSO. The purpose of the Act was to encourage providers to work with PSOs to improve patient safety and to reduce the incidence of events that adversely affect patients. Strong privacy and confidentiality protections are intended to encourage greater participation by providers in the examination of patient safety events. By establishing strong protections, providers may engage in more detailed discussions about the causes of adverse events without the fear of liability from information and analyses generated from those discussions.