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In response to the Institute of Medicine’s 1999 report To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) are sponsoring a national summit on the Collection and Use of Information to Reduce Errors (CUIRE). Summit participants will discuss (1) how to best collect and analyze data on patient safety and (2) how practitioners may best use this information to enhance health care.

The summit will be structured to include large and small group sessions, testimonials, interactive question-and-answer sessions, and panelists of experts and end users. The CUIRE Summit is an opportunity to gather input on data collection, analysis, and application of this information in health care practice to reduce medical errors and adverse events.

Some of the specific goals of the 2-day meeting include: (1) developing a common language/vocabulary to discuss errors; (2) establishing a communication strategy to address the concerns of various stakeholders, including health care practitioners, states, media, professional groups, and the general public; (3) gathering more information about existing and developing systems; (4) hearing first-hand accounts of issues regarding reporting systems and lessons learned from those involved in the process; and (5) addressing legal issues regarding confidentiality and peer review protection, such as the priority of importance of Federal and state laws in a national system and the legal risks and benefits of participating in a coordinated system versus a state- or agency-based system.

Background Information for the Press

The primary purpose of the CUIRE Summit is to discuss how public- and private-sector organizations will collect, analyze, and use information on patient safety—including medical errors and adverse events—for both accountability and learning. The goals of the Summit include: gathering information about existing or developing reporting systems for collaborative purposes; hearing from those involved with the process about critical issues; how these issues may be addressed through the Patient Safety Task Force (PSTF); and identifying lessons learned from current safety reporting systems within medicine and other industries. The objective of the Summit is to develop a framework for the ideal reporting system given issues and barriers identified by experts, understand the current state of affairs for the various reporting systems, and determine how to advance from the current to the ideal state.

The Summit is open to individuals and organizations interested in patient safety information. Individuals responsible for developing various reporting systems for both accountability and learning will be especially interested. The Summit proceedings will be summarized in a Journal of the American Medical Association article and Summit Monograph