New designation strengthens confidentiality protections and expands opportunities to identify patient safety trends across correctional facilities
NCCHC Resources, Inc., has been officially listed as a Patient Safety Organization (PSO) by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), strengthening its ability to help correctional facilities improve patient safety, quality of care, and health outcomes.
“Patient safety improves when facility staff and leadership examine health care processes and adverse events openly and apply those findings to reduce preventable errors,” said Fred Meyer, MA, CJM, CCHP, managing director of NCCHC Resources. “Becoming a Patient Safety Organization gives us a powerful new way to have those conversations with our clients in a protected environment. This designation further allows up to analyze data from multiple facilities and to identify patterns across agencies.”
For 10 years, NCCHC Resources has worked with jails, prisons, and juvenile detention facilities to examine health care services, identify areas for improvement, and implement practical solutions to strengthen health care delivery and reduce risk. Becoming a federally listed PSO adds an important new dimension to that work.
PSOs were created under the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 to encourage health care providers and organizations to voluntarily share quality and patient safety information in a protected environment. The goal is to enable organizations to learn from adverse events and other safety concerns without fear that protected information will later be used against them. For correctional facilities operating in a highly litigious environment, those protections create new opportunities for candid analysis and meaningful improvement.
A Protected Environment for Patient Safety Improvement
One of the most significant benefits of working with a federally listed PSO is the confidentiality and privilege afforded to qualifying patient safety work product.
With certain exceptions, patient safety work product developed when facility staff work with a PSO is protected from federal, state, and local subpoena or discovery. It generally may not be admitted as evidence in criminal, civil, administrative, or disciplinary proceedings and is not subject to federal Freedom of Information Act requests or similar state and local laws. These federal protections apply across all U.S. states and territories. When clients engage NCCHC Resources for PSO services, our team will work collaboratively with their staff to follow PSO procedures and help ensure appropriate protections are in place.
For NCCHC Resources clients, this creates an environment in which facilities can more openly examine patient safety concerns, identify contributing factors, and work with experts on solutions.
Turning Data into Action
PSO status also expands NCCHC Resources’ ability to aggregate and analyze patient safety information across participating facilities. Looking beyond a single event or facility can reveal patterns that may not otherwise be apparent. A PSO can analyze information from multiple facilities to identify trends and underlying causes.
Over time, this approach will give NCCHC Resources a broad, unique view of patient safety in correctional settings and allow the organization to identify emerging risks, recurring challenges, and effective practices to report back to individual clients.
Correctional Health Care Expertise Makes the Difference
PSO designation complements what distinguishes NCCHC Resources from other consulting organizations: its specialized expertise in correctional health care.
NCCHC Resources’ work is grounded in the NCCHC standards and the realities of delivering health care in correctional environments. Its experts understand both health care and custody operations and provide objective, practical, and actionable recommendations designed for the unique challenges of jails, prisons, and other correctional settings.
That specialized knowledge is particularly important when selecting a PSO. AHRQ advises health care organizations to consider whether a PSO’s expertise, experience, services, and familiarity with a particular health care setting align with their needs.
Becoming a PSO gives NCCHC Resources another powerful tool to advance the goal that has guided its work for the past decade: safer patients, better outcomes, stronger systems of care, and reduced risk in correctional facilities.
To learn more about working with NCCHC Resources as a Patient Safety Organization, contact info@ncchcresources.org.