Too many medical errors that harm patients go unreported because the government isn’t listening to patients and their families, federal officials said today.
The Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, a division of the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, filed public notice requesting about $900,000 from the Office of Management & Budget to build a prototype to collect and analyze data from patients and their families.
"Such information is necessary for research on how to improve the quality of health care, promote patient safety and reduce medical errors." the agency wrote. "There is a need to collect this information from consumers and match these consumer reports to the information collected by providers, because the 2 sources may differ."
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The agency will collect data via online questionnaires and phone-call follow-ups, which will then be cross-referenced with healthcare providers’ records to determine if there is a significant difference.
"Data collected will be analyzed to produce estimates and basic descriptive statistics on the quantity and type of consumer-reported patient safety events, examine the variability of responses to questions, examine the mode of data collection by event types, and conduct correlations, cross tabulations of responses and other statistical analysis," agency officials wrote.