The Adverse Health Events Reporting Law, passed during the 2003
legislative session and modified again in 2004, provides health
care consumers with information on how well hospitals, community
behavioral health hospitals, and outpatient surgical centers are
doing at preventing adverse events. The law requires that these
facilities disclose when any of 28 serious reportable events
occur and requires MDH to publish annual reports of the events by
facility, along with an analysis of the events, the corrections
implemented by facilities and any recommendations for
improvement.
Since our beginning in 1979 as a Medicare peer review
organization mandated by federal law and acting in only a portion
of Arizona, we have burgeoned to our present status and now serve
over 20 percent of the Medicare population nationwide as a
quality improvement organization (QIO). HSAG has also become
involved with Medicaid programs in more than a dozen states where
we work to assure the quality, access, timeliness, and
appropriateness of care for approximately 45 percent of the
nation’s Medicaid recipients.
The Authority is charged with taking steps to reduce and
eliminate medical errors by identifying problems and recommending
solutions that promote patient safety in hospitals, ambulatory
surgical facilities, birthing centers and certain abortion
facilities. The Authority analyzes and evaluates all reports
and makes recommendations for changes in health care practices
and procedures which may be instituted to reduce the number and
severity of Serious Events and Incidents in Pennsylvania’s
healthcare institutions. The Authority’s role is
non-regulatory and non-punitive and is distinguished from the
role of other state agencies involved in regulating and/or
licensing health care facilities or individual providers.
