Hospital officials from the Hudson Valley region and their Westchester business community partner last week announced the start of a federally certified patient safety organization whose shared information among hospitals and physicians could improve and standardize patient care across the region and lead to health care cost savings for premium-paying businesses and patients alike.
The Northern Metropolitan Patient Safety Institute is the first Patient Safety Organization, or PSO, in New York and one of 20 nationwide certified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. It is an affiliate of the Newburgh-based Northern Metropolitan Association, representing 30 nonprofit hospitals with more than 7,200 acute-care beds and a service area of about 2.5 million people in Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester counties.
Authorized by the federal Patient Safety Act of 2005, PSOs afford legal protection for members ”“ chiefly, confidentiality and protection from malpractice and antitrust suits ”“ to encourage them to voluntarily share information within the PSO to develop common solutions and best practices based on analysis of specific incidents and “near-misses” arising in patient care. Â
“The goal is for hospitals in the Hudson Valley to become among the safest hospitals in the nation, thereby saving patient lives, improving patient outcomes and reducing health care costs,” Phelps Memorial Hospital Center President and CEO Keith F. Safian said at a press conference last week hosted by the Westchester County Association in White Plains. The business advocacy group is a partner in the newly formed NorMet PSO.
Safian said member nonprofit hospitals “all have the same intention ”“ to provide better health care for our patients in our communities.” The PSO “is just going to help us accomplish this better and faster.”
WCA President William M. Mooney Jr. noted the importance of hospitals to Westchester County”™s economy. With 14 hospitals employing 16,000 to 17,000 workers, “It”™s an economic engine that needs to remain viable and competitive,” he said.
The WCA in recent years has been a leading advocate for health care reform measures at the state level that particularly would lower group insurance premium costs for employers while improving the quality and effectiveness of services. “Business has always recognized that standardizing processes is the best way to assure consistently high quality outcomes,” he said last week. The regional PSO “will enable individual hospitals, together with their physicians, nurses and other health care professionals, to work together to standardize evidence-based processes that will provide the highest quality of care in the safest manner.”
U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, citing the “fragility” of the nation”™s health care system, said approximately 47 million Americans have no health insurance coverage while “millions more” are underinsured. Meanwhile, premiums charged by insurance-plan providers have increased by an average of 73 percent over the last five years, she said. Still the U.S. ranks last among 19 industrial nations in quality of health care, she noted.
“High-quality care provided in the safest environment results in lower overall health care costs, which in turn provides the opportunity to increase access to more people,” the congresswoman said.
Lowey said the regional PSO”™s inclusion of business organizations as partners is a “unique” model. “This creates an opportunity for the business community, a major purchaser of health care services, to contribute information about their needs and experiences to the hospitals.”        Â
Neil Abitabilo, president of the Northern Metropolitan Hospital Association, said the focus on health care quality and patient safety through a regional PSO is “a baby step” on the road to health care reform “to produce a commodity that the businesses can purchase and feel they”™re getting value” while also insuring more consumers.
Abitabilo said PSO conferences are first and foremost for hospital clinicians. “If you”™re not hands-on with a patient, you probably don”™t belong in PSO,” he said. By sharing data about a specific medical procedure, for example, and potential risks that could arise, clinicians could develop a best-practice model, “what”™s the safest, highest-quality way of doing it in an efficient manner.” If the best practice is adopted across the seven-county region, “As a consumer it”™s going to be music to your ear,” he said.
“The business community has a role here” in the PSO, Abitabilo said. “The initial focus is very clinical. But as you identify areas” to improve and standardize care, “it moves out into the business community.” Businesses can use the PSO findings to push for more stable premiums and proper reimbursements from insurance companies, he said.
“It opens up the door to how we get to health care reform,” Abitabilo said. “You can”™t get to health care reform until you create efficiencies.”   Â
Â
