QualityStar, Diagnostic Quality Assurance® PSO, First Anatomic Pathology QA Program To Attain Patient Safety Organization (PSO) Listing by HHS

DIAGNOSTIC QUALITY ASSURANCE®

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Assurance (AHRQ) has approved the Diagnostic Quality Assurance ® (DQA) listing as a Patient Safety Organization (PSO) by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Diagnostic Quality Assurance® PSO is a component entity of QualityStar, LLC (www.qualitystar.net), and is the first PSO for anatomic pathology(AP) quality assurance(QA) to be federally listed and certified by the federal Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality.

“QualityStar’s Diagnostic Quality Assurance® PSO is envisioned to complement the efforts of the Institute of Medicine to reduce diagnostic discrepancies and support the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative for accurate and timely diagnosis of cancer. DQA® is well positioned to gather needed diagnostic data to improve quality in AP” said Monique Spence, President.

The Patient Safety Act is part of a larger framework of the Institute of Medicine and designed to balance two goals: 1) To improve patient safety and reduce medical errors by creating a ‘‘culture of safety’’ to share and learn from information related to patient safety events, and 2) to promote health care providers’ accountability and transparency.

Patient safety organizations listed by the AHRQ exist to help healthcare providers improve the care they deliver to patients by encouraging them to conduct quality and safety analyses. Through federal protections of legal privilege and confidentiality, authorized by the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005, patient safety organizations help foster a culture of safety and create a secure environment for clinicians to report information such as diagnostic errors and pathologist peer review information to improve healthcare quality. PSOs are part of AHRQ’s strategy to improve quality by changing the culture of evaluating physician performance and reducing medical errors.

“This is an exciting time for QualityStar with the recognition of our efforts to support continuous learning and resulting reduction in interpretive diagnostic errors in anatomic pathology. We know that pathologists and healthcare organizations want to participate in efforts to improve patient care and quality, but they are often inhibited by concerns of liability and sanctions.” said Mark Priebe, Managing Director.

About Diagnostic Quality Assurance® (DQA)

DQA® consists of geographically diverse and forward thinking U.S. based pathology specialists from National Cancer Institute (NCI) designated hospitals. All with a common goal to reduce diagnostic interpretative error to foster higher quality patient care and provide a more cost efficient delivery of diagnosis via an integrated approach of shared data and best practices. DQA® offers healthcare providers the opportunity to participate in patient safety and quality improvement efforts with the federal privilege and confidentiality protections of the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 against discovery in potential litigation.

About QualityStar®

QualityStar is a quality analytics and case review subscription service for Anatomic Pathology offering confidential  third-party quality assurance review with metrics to measure and continuously improve diagnostic proficiency. Approved by the American Board of Pathology (ABP) as a MOC QA Level IV program, QualityStar draws on a national network of sub-specialists and serves as a low-cost and impartial alternative to in-house quality assurance. QualityStar goes beyond the standard peer review concept – ultimately to help pathology practices reduce diagnostic interpretive errors and improve patient care.

Source: QualityStar