Data collected in patient safety systems comes with confidentiality protections under the federal Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (PSQIA). These protections encourage physicians to share patient safety information without fear of liability—but a Florida case could impede efforts to improve patient safety, jeopardizing these protections.
Florida has specific requirements for hospital risk management, including preparation of incident reports. Although Florida law requires hospitals to prepare these reports, they do not have to be submitted to the state unless the state directly requests them. For information not reported to the state, PSQIA allows physicians and other health care providers a way to share information related to patient safety events through a Patient Safety Organization (PSO). Information submitted to a PSO is to be used to improve the quality of care and patient safety without threat that the information will be used against providers.
In Southern Baptist Hospital of Florida, Inc. v. Charles, a Florida court ordered a hospital to produce patient safety work product documents as part of litigation discovery, even though the state had not required these documents to be reported to it and the documents had been submitted to a PSO. This was notwithstanding the hospital’s argument that the PSQIA protected the documents from discovery in litigation, and their production to the plaintiffs would undermine the efforts of physicians, government agencies and other health industry participants to improve patient safety.
The hospital has appealed the trial court ruling. The Litigation Center of the AMA and State Medical Societies and the Florida Medical Association earlier this month filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the hospital and the patient safety efforts encouraged under the PSQIA.
“PSOs are required to collect, analyze and make ‘valid comparisons’ among providers and provide ‘direct feedback and assistance to providers to effectively manage patient risk,’” the brief said. “These important responsibilities cannot be accomplished, however, unless providers are able to submit patient safety data reports and related information on a confidential basis to their PSOs.”
Visit the AMA Litigation Center Web page to learn more about this case and others related to patient safety.
