Patient safety laboratories: States pave the way for a national effort

From the need for confidentiality to the advantages of voluntary disclosure, state error reporting laws offer lessons for federal lawmakers.

By Joel B. Finkelstein, amednews staff. Jan. 3/10, 2005.

Congress has struggled unsuccessfully for several years to pass patient safety legislation, failing again in the final months of 2004. But while the federal government has remained stuck, many states have forged ahead.

Five years after the splash made by the Institute of Medicine's report on medical errors, "To Err Is Human," state patient safety laws have paved the way for a national effort to collect and analyze medical error data in a way that makes sense and provides useful information for hospitals and physicians.

Twenty states have some form of medical error reporting law, including Florida and New Jersey, which enacted new measures last year, and Connecticut, which refined its existing law.

"A lot of states have identified patient safety as an area of importance," said Paul Schyve, MD, senior vice president for the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. "It is on the radar screen for states ... something they would like to improve."

Although polls suggest that this work has been largely unseen by the public, the efforts have established the foundation for a new phase in which safety will become a collaborative effort between both doctors and patients.

"What's really exciting is we have patient advocacy groups who are training patients themselves how to be more responsible for their own safety," said Matthew Rice, MD, chief medical officer at Northwest Emergency Physicians in Federal Way, Wash., and a board member of the National Patient Safety Foundation.

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