Common Formats Supplemental Details
As authorized by the Secretary, AHRQ coordinates the development of a set of common definitions and reporting formats (Common Formats) that allow health care providers to voluntarily collect and submit standardized information regarding patient safety events. AHRQ issued the initial release of the formats, Version 0.1 Beta, in August 2008 and the second release, Version 1.0, in September 2009. From September 2009 to February 2010, AHRQ received comments on Version 1.0 from the public, and AHRQ published Version 1.1 on March 31, 2010.
The current release, Common Formats Version 1.1, is limited to patient safety reporting for acute care hospitals and is designed to support the first stage in the improvement cycle. Version 1.1 includes two general types of formats, generic and event-specific. The generic Common Formats pertain to all patient safety concerns. The three generic formats are: Healthcare Event Reporting Form, Patient Information Form, and Summary of Initial Report. The event-specific Common Formats pertain to frequently occurring and/or serious patient safety events. The eight event-specific formats are: blood or blood product, device or medical/surgical supply, fall, health care-associated infection, medication or other substance, perinatal, pressure ulcer, and surgery or anesthesia
The formats include descriptions of patient safety events and unsafe conditions to be reported, specifications for patient safety aggregate reports and individual event summaries, delineation of data elements to be collected for specific types of events, and a user’s guide and quick guide.
Refinement of Version 1.0 to 1.1.
Version 1.1 reflects no change in the categories of patient safety events and includes minor revisions to the forms based upon the public comments. In addition, the formats now have technical specifications for electronic data collection and reporting. The technical specifications promote standardization by ensuring that data collected by PSOs and other entities are clinically and electronically comparable. The specifications also provide direction to software developers, so the Common Formats can be implemented electronically, and to PSOs, so the Common Formats can be submitted electronically to the PSO Privacy Protection Center (PPC) for data de-identification and transmission to the Network of Patient Safety Databases (NPSD). AHRQ will use data from the NPSD to analyze national and regional statistics, including trends and patterns, regarding patient safety events. Findings are to be made public and included in AHRQ's annual National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports.
Refinements to include patient safety events related to Health Information Technology
In order to capture more detail on patient safety events related to Health Information Technology (HIT), AHRQ has developed a beta version Common Format that refines the currently available Device or Medical/Surgical Supply format. This beta version (Device or Medical/Surgical Supply including HIT Device) refines the language of the current (1.1 Version) Device Common Format by adding in HIT examples to clarify statements and additional questions that are HIT specific. AHRQ has released the beta version for public comment; the beta version and all of the formats are available on the PSO PPC Web site (http://www.pso.ahrq.gov/formats/commonfmt.htm ). The enhanced format, Device or Medical/Surgical Supply including HIT Device, will be incorporated into the next version of the Common Formats (Version 1.2).
AHRQ PSO Common Formats Attachment A
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Department of Health and Human Services |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-02-01 |