American Medical Association: Revamp medical error report rules

June 14, 2008

Proposed rules for patient safety organizations are a good effort toward keeping reports on medical errors confidential, the American Medical Association said in a comment letter submitted to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. But the regulations could use some modifications to make the safeguards even stronger, the AMA said.

These organizations will collect information from physicians, other health professionals, hospitals and other institutions on medical errors in order to analyze trends.

Congress authorized the creation of these organizations when it passed the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005. In February, AHRQ published the proposed regulation that would implement the law.

Maintaining confidentiality is critical to making patient safety organizations work, because physicians must trust that the information they report will not be used against them, the AMA said in an April comment letter.

It urged an even broader definition of patient safety work product, which is any data reported to or developed by a patient safety organization that could improve health care outcomes. Work product also includes the organization’s deliberations and analysis of the data.