AHRQ intends to award a project to Health Level Seven to coordinate and develop standard value sets (i.e. code sets) needed to implement common reporting formats for patient safety event reporting. Specifically the organization is to develop standards for interoperability, optimize workflow, reduce ambiguity, and provide for knowledge transfer of information to all stakeholders.
If other interested Standard Development Organizations (SDO) want to response to this notice, and feel that they can perform the work and have the qualifications and expertise; they should response to the notice on www.fbo.gov titled “Patient Safety Taxonomy Standard Lists” (AHRQ-08-10034) posted May 13, 2008. Organizations responding need to submit a statement of capabilities. The responding SDO must be ANSI accredited, operate in the clinical and health administrative data domain, and have knowledge of complex databases.
The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 required the Secretary of HHS to create and maintain a network of patient safety databases and to determine common formats for reporting this information. AHRQ led the initiative to coordinate the development of the common formats through an interagency Work Group that included CDC, CMS, FDA, HRSA, NIH, VA, IHS, and DOD.
Organizations submitting statement of capabilities must have them to AHRQ by May 28, 2008 and the information needs to be sent to Sharon.Williams@ahrq.hhs.gov. For more information, go to www.fbo.gov, or contact Sharon Williams at (301) 427-1781
