As national leaders in the patient safety arena, HQI and its affiliate, Collaborative Healthcare Patient Safety Organization (CHPSO) are continually pursuing efforts to eliminate patient harm. We are always looking for new and innovative methods and partners and viewing patient safety issues through different lenses has always been an HQI/CHPSO attribute.
In that light, CHPSO has recently entered into a member agreement with Cerner, a health care information technology company.
This relationship is important on several levels. To begin, we believe this is the first ever arrangement between a PSO and an electronic health record (EHR) developer. As health information technology/EHRs are an integral part of patient safety this becomes an avenue for expanded communication and shared learning. It is the role of PSOs to bring providers, in whatever capacity, together to share and to help expand the knowledge base for all stakeholders. PSOs provide the structure and support needed to encourage open sharing of information in order to help our members provide the safest and highest quality care possible.
EHRs collect massive amounts of data that – if analyzed properly – can lead to significant improvements in the quality of care provided to all patients. EHRs touch almost every aspect of the health care delivery system, making relationships such as this more important than ever.
HQI/CHPSO remain committed to providing value and benefit to our members and assisting them in their pursuit of eliminating preventable harm. Bringing together the widest range of thought and experience is one way we can accomplish this.
HQI/CHPSO welcome Cerner as one of our newest members and look forward to partnering with them and our entire membership of over 450 providers in their pursuit of ensuring safe, quality care for the patients they serve.