Quality Quarterly

CHPSO 2019 Annual Report Released

Recording now available

The CHPSO 2019 Annual Report was released on May 13, 2020. This report, which covers the period of January 1–December 31, 2020, focuses on CHPSO’s year in review with highlights for 2020. The report is available here

As of the end of 2019, the database has grown to over 2.6 million reports, with 375,472 events submitted in 2019. The large number of events enables the CHPSO staff to analyze the information within these reports to provide feedback to our members and the healthcare system at large. Healthcare organizations are finding the value in becoming a member of CHPSO, which is complimentary for members of the California Hospital Association (CHA), and available at a nominal fee for non-CHA members. 

According to a September 2019, Office of Inspector General report, more than half of general acute-care hospitals work with a Patient Safety Organization (PSO), and nearly all of them find it valuable. Among hospitals that work with a PSO, 80% find that the PSO’s feedback and analysis on patient safety events have helped prevent future patient safety events.  

The Patient Safety Work Product privilege, established under the Patient Safety Act of 2005, affords health care providers the opportunity to engage in protected discussions about safety events without fear of discovery or subpoena. These discussions, also known as safe table meetings, increased in 2019. 

This report also contains information on lessons learned from the CHPSO database.  We analyzed safety event reports from the “Medication or Other Substance” category submitted to CHPSO in 2019. We encourage members to review the “Medication or Other Substance” events in their systems and consider how this report might provide insight into issues and opportunities for improvement in their own organizations.  

We also can also provide individual facility reports on the topic of “Other/Uncategorized” on demand. If you have questions about the report and the data submission process, contact CHPSO at info@chpso.org.  

In this report, you will also find information about the number of null fields in certain data elements such as age, gender, harm level, and severity – among others. The report also provides an overview of the Non-Event Domain Data Submission process, which was added in 2019.  It allows organizations to easily report or disclose PSWP that is not in the format of an individual safety event report. If you are interested in learning more about the submission of data to this new domain, contact us at info@chpso.org.