MERS International's software, developed at the International Center for Health Outcomes and Innovation Research (InCHOIR) at Columbia University (New York, NY, USA) helps hospital staff systematically record, investigate, analyze, classify, and find the root causes of actual and near-miss events, such as falls, medication errors, and ventilator-associated pneumonias. Among the features of MERS are a proprietary taxonomy for cataloguing events; built-in reporting capability to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) MedWatch system as well as state reports; online causal tree building analysis using World Health Organization (WHO) causal codes, and a system for identifying similar events in the database. The system provides a central database of reports for process improvement and solution sharing across facilities.

The MERS system will be deployed by GE Healthcare specialists trained to utilize the data as part of several different facilitation tools to help staff achieve measurable and lasting process and culture changes. With this solution, GE and MERS will help hospitals respond to that challenge and address other patient safety initiatives, such as the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 5 Million Lives Campaign. MERS employs web-based event reporting, found to be superior to systems that are paper-based or those that use simple spreadsheets. Using the data, GE Healthcare can then call upon its ability to drive process improvements that help to reduce the incidence of events and improve outcomes for patients. MERS users include large urban academic medical centers, community hospitals, pediatric and psychiatric facilities, as well as ambulatory clinics.

"GE's venture with MERS International puts an extremely powerful patient-safety tool in the hands of people trained to apply it for the greatest benefit," said Jeff Terry, general manager for clinical excellence with GE Healthcare. "It enables hospitals to move from monitoring and reporting adverse events to making process changes that actually help to prevent such events. It will help hospitals focus on patient safety more than ever before and drive more results."

Related Links:
Medical Event Reporting System (MERS) International
General Electric (GE) Healthcare
Columbia University