Finally! The AHRQ has published proposed rules for the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005. The proposed regulations describe how an entity may become a Patient Safety Organization.  Sections of the proposed regulations also explain how clinicians will be able to report patient safety events confidentially, how this data will be shared with others while remaining private, and how clinicians and other health care organizations will receive feedback on ways to improve patient safety. This is really very good public policy.

Members of the public are invited to comment on the set of proposed rules within the next 60 days. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking can be viewed here. I encourage you to comment. Rules like this one, that will affect both quality and confidentiality, must be written with physician input. But this has a lot to be positive about.