4/23/2019 - Dr. Marc Edwards of QA to QI LLC announced his company will cease federal Patient Safety Organization services effective June 15. The company was initially listed as a PSO on June 30, 2010.
"I'm grateful to have had the experience with this federal program, but lack of demand made it difficult to grow the business." said Dr. Edwards. "The most successful PSOs have capitve audiences, most commonly state hospital association or specialty society members. For a while, it looked like the Affordable Care Act would stimulate the market, but CMS effectively undercut the requirement for hospitals with at least 50 beds to establish a PSO relationship."
While operating a PSO, Dr. Edwards completed two of his four national studies of clinical peer review practices and published seven scientific manuscripts addressing quality and safety including An Organizational Learning Framework for Patient Safety and An Assessment of the Impact of Just Culture on Quality and Safety in U.S. Hospitals.
The regulations mandate that Patient Safety Work Product received by a PSO be returned to providers, transfered to another PSO or destroyed within 90 days of de-listing. All affected clients have been notified and plans are in place to comply with this requirement.
Marc T. Edwards, MD, MBA is President and CEO of QA to QI LLC d/b/a QA to QI Consulting. Through his research in healthcare operations improvement, he characterized best practices in pursuit of quality and safety via clinical peer review and exposed the limitations of the Just Culture model. He markets clinical peer review program management software and assists clients to make improvements in quality, safety and resource use. For additional information, visit https://qatoqi.com/bio.htm or contact him directly: marc@QAtoQI.com; 860.521.8484.
QA to QI Consulting (Chapel Hill, NC; www.QAtoQI.com) specializes in the development of evidence-based tools for healthcare improvement through operations research.