- GE Healthcare acquires MERS (Medical Event Reporting System) patient safety evaluation system for capturing, reporting and analyzing safety events and near misses, helping to drive improvements in patient care.
- MERS technology is a key component of GE’s Patient Safety Organization.
- The acquisition of the MERS technology provides a platform through which GE can continue to invest and work with their clients in their efforts to improve safety and quality in healthcare delivery.
BARRINGTON, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- GE Healthcare Performance Solutions today announced that it has acquired the Medical Event Reporting System (MERS) technology from MERS International, LLC. MERS is a fundamental component of GE’s Patient Safety Organization (GE PSO), established earlier this year to help healthcare providers in their efforts to improve patient safety by pinpointing the root causes of risk and fostering collaboration within a community to mitigate those risks. The MERS event reporting technology collects, reports and analyzes patient event and near miss data through a web-based system, which helps hospitals identify root causes of safety events.
“The MERS technology is really a cornerstone of our PSO as it provides our customers and PSO members the ability to gather, aggregate and then analyze data so that they can truly create change,” said Christopher Larkin, Chief Technology Officer, GE Healthcare Performance Solutions. “By acquiring the full technology profile of MERS, Performance Solutions will have the tools to further expand our current and future offerings, providing insight to hospital administrators, clinicians and policymakers to assist them in identifying and isolating factors that contribute to medical errors.”
Invented at the International Center for Health Outcomes and Innovation Research (InCHOIR) at Columbia University, with support from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), MERS software helps providers capture not only harmful events (such as medication errors, healthcare-associated infections and other types of events), but also tracks no-harm events, near misses and unsafe conditions.
“Through the use of MERS, our team at Kent Hospital was able to identify challenges related to our patient identification processes, and as a result we created a new protocol for patient identification. Similarly, analyzing the MERS data and trending information helped us identify gaps in our falls prevention program, which we adjusted to improve the safety of our patients and their outcomes,” said Rene Fischer, CNO of Kent Hospital. “MERS goes beyond simply reporting – it gives us the ability to trend and track our data to identify areas where we can take action for overall improvement in patient safety.”
MERS gives hospital staff the ability to report via a web-based platform which in turn helps convert raw data into actionable information. The MERS system takes hospital administrators and staff through the process of (1) quickly and efficiently collecting data about a safety event in a hospital system; (2) breaking down communication silos by routing events to appropriate staff for review; and (3) reporting and analyzing that data to help identify root causes through robust analytic tools, such as exact matching query tools, similarity matching algorithms, causal tree building, charting and graphical capabilities, customizable reports and more. In addition, the technology is compliant with AHRQ’s Common Formats and seamlessly links to the GE PSO for aggregation, benchmarking and insights. Together, MERS and the GE PSO can provide insights and a community to assist clinicians in a goal they work hard to achieve every day - improvement in patient safety and quality of care.
“GE’s work with MERS has enabled our clients to move from simply reporting adverse events, to identifying root causes and implementing change proactively,” said Deepak Pillai, MD, MERS Product Manager, GE Healthcare Performance Solutions.
GE is currently working with 16 hospitals across the U.S. as well as numerous clinics, physician offices, surgery centers, laboratory services and other groups to deploy the MERS technology. GE expects continued growth within the U.S., Canada and beyond over the next few years.
About MERS
MERS International, initially based in the Netherlands, with headquarters in Rockport, MA and a New York-based subsidiary, is dedicated to improving patient care through innovative solutions. MERS International continued the development of the MERS software invented at InCHOIR, Columbia University and was responsible for the initial growth of a robust and proven medical event reporting system (MERS). Through the systemic collection, investigation, classification, interpretation and monitoring of information about near miss and actual events occurring anywhere in a hospital or healthcare facility, MERS empowers healthcare professionals and organizations to improve patient safety and quality of care.
About GE Healthcare
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.
Our “healthymagination” vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employees are committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.
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CONTACT:
GE Healthcare Performance Solutions
Britta Barrett
[email protected]
Tel.: +1 203-400-1892
KEYWORDS: United States North America Illinois
INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Health Hospitals General Health Managed Care
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