Legal Insight

A PSA Regarding the PSA: Patient Safety Work Product and Privilege

Much has been made of the efforts to increase the quality of patient safety and healthcare in recent years.  To further this goal, Congress passed the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (“PSA”), which provides the protection of privilege to documents created as part of patient safety efforts in patient safety organizations. These organizations are defined as private, certified organizations that operate within larger healthcare organizations to improve care and reduce medical errors. The purpose behind this protection is to encourage healthcare providers to share information enabling evaluation of healthcare treatment, including failures, to improve patient safety and quality of care without fear of liability.  More >