Fresenius Medical Care PSO Recognized by Dept of HHS.

Fresenius Medical Care  Patient Safety Organization (PSO.)was recognized by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The certification by the United.States Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, the first for a dialysis organization, furthers Fresenius Medical Care’s mission of continuously improving patient safety and health care quality. The purpose of a PSO is to establish a framework by which doctors and other health care providers may voluntarily report information to PSOs, on a privileged and confidential basis, to collect and analyze patient safety events. Regulations outline how the PSO may utilize data and act as a resource for health care providers to understand and minimize the risks and hazards in delivering patient care.

A PSO's workforce must have expertise in analyzing patient safety events, such as the identification, analysis, prevention, and reduction or elimination of the risks and hazards associated with the delivery of patient care.

“Each of our more than 1,800 kidney dialysis clinics in the U.S. has a Quality Improvement Committee that investigates the root causes of all patient adverse events, with the objective of continuous improvement in patient safety and quality of care,” said Michael Lazarus, M.D., director of Fresenius Medical Care Patient Safety Organization. “Our companywide Patient Safety Organization performs a more global root cause analysis of aggregate data. We do this to maximize safe conditions in our facilities and to provide the safest dialysis treatments