HARRISBURG: Alan B. K. Rabinowitz has submitted his resignation as Administrator of the Patient Safety Authority, effective December 29, 2006.
Rabinowitz was named the Authority’s first Administrator in November, 2002. Under his tenure, the Authority developed and implemented the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System (PA-PSRS), a mandatory, statewide data collection and analysis system, and initiated publication of the Patient Safety Advisory, a clinical journal related to quality care and patient safety that is distributed around the country. Over the past four years, the Authority has garnered national recognition and recently won a prestigious 2006 John Eisenberg Award for advancing patient safety and quality, given jointly by the National Quality Forum and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
Prior to being appointed Administrator, Rabinowitz spent more than seven years as Chief of Staff in the Pennsylvania Department of Health. He previously worked in the private sector and, from 1979-1987, was on the personal staff of then-governor Dick Thornburgh. In submitting his resignation from the Authority, Rabinowitz will retire from Commonwealth service.
The Authority’s Board of Directors is conducting a search to find a successor. They have named Michael Doering, current PA-PSRS project manager, as Interim Administrator.
BACKGROUND
The Patient Safety Authority is an independent state agency created by Act 13 of 2002, the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error (“Mcare”) Act as amended, to help reduce and eliminate medical errors by identifying problems and recommending solutions that promote patient safety. Under the Act, all Pennsylvania-licensed hospitals, birthing centers, ambulatory surgical facilities and certain abortion facilities are required to report what the Act defines as “serious events” and “incidents” to the Authority. More than 460 healthcare facilities are subject to Act 13 reporting requirements.
Facilities submit reports of serious events and incidents through the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System (PA-PSRS), a confidential web-based system that was developed for the Authority under a contract with ECRI, a Pennsylvania-based independent, non-profit health services research agency, in partnership with EDS, a leading international, information technology firm, and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), also a Pennsylvania-based, non-profit health research organization.
More than 425,000 reports have been submitted through PA-PSRS since the program was initiated in June 2004. Ninety-six percent of these reports are Incidents or “near-misses.” Based on those reports, the Authority issues quarterly and supplementary Patient Safety Advisories to advise hospitals and other healthcare facilities about steps they can take to reduce and prevent patient harm.
The Authority was named a recipient of the 2006 John M. Eisenberg Award for advancing patient safety and quality. Presented jointly by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the National Quality Forum, the award acknowledges the Authority’s impact on patient safety because of efforts to make the PA-PSRS system into a nationally recognized resource for education and learning about patient safety.
For more information on the Patient Safety Authority, PA-PSRS or copies of the Patient Safety Advisory, visit the Authority’s website at www.patientsafetyauthority.org.
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