State of Florida
Agency for Health Care Administration
Florida Center for Health Information and Policy Analysis
RISK MANAGEMENT & PATIENT SAFETY PROGRAM
MEDICAL ERRORS RESOLUTION AND TRACKING PROGRAMS
HOSPITALS
AND
AMBULATORY SURGICAL CENTERS
The State of Florida, Agency for Health Care Administration, administers serious patient injury reporting, tracking, trending and problem resolution programs in hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers, as authorized in Chapter 395.0197 F.S. The law also requires that licensed health care risk managers implement programs prescribed by statute to accomplish these processes, which include continuing quality assessment and improvement and assuring greater patient safety in each of these facilities. The main thrust of the programs is identifying incidents occurring in health care facilities, which have an outcome of patient injury and may reflect error in the course of the delivery of health care services. However, Chapter 395 F.S. only requires reporting these incidents to the Agency by hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers at this time. They must also report any injuries of which they are aware occurring through any health care service, which would include nursing homes, home health organizations, doctors' offices, dentists' offices, or any other purveyor of health care service. Additionally, Chapter 641.55 requires similar reporting of patient injury incidents by HMOs. The patient injury incidents are reported through two different types of reporting mechanisms:
The facility Annual Report-- must reflect all adverse incidents according to statutory definition, which occur in the facility in the course of a calendar year, and due in to the Agency, Risk Management & Patient Safety Program, after the first of each year for the previous year; and
The Code 15 Report-- reports in detail and analyzes each serious patient injury, as defined by statute, and due in to the Agency, Risk Management & Patient Safety Program, within 15 days from the time of the occurrence of the injury.
Articles
View articles of interest and statistical reports.
Reporting/On-line Reporting
For submission of Code 15 and Annual
Reports for hospitals and ambulatory surgical center via the internet.
Download/view available reports, forms, instructions, and other related information.
Statutes
View information about the statutory authority of the Agency for Health Care Administration,
Hospital and Outpatient Services Unit regarding risk management programs.
Agency Annual Risk Management Report
The Agency annually publishes a report summarizing information contained in
the annual incident reports as well as malpractice claims information reported
to the Agency. View the Annual Report. The Agency also publishes quarterly a report containing a summary and trends of adverse incidents received by the Agency. View the Quarterly Reports.
Contacts
For assistance with risk management issues, the office staff is available for
consultation. View a list of risk management staff [47kb .pdf].
Click above to view selection.Note: For viewing our downloadable 'pdf' files, it is recommended that you use Adobe Reader 4.0. Adobe Reader is available at www.adobe.com.
Updated January 15, 2009
