Patient Safety Tools for Physician Practices

In 2006, the Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET), the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) and the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) launched the Physician Practice Patient Safety Assessment® (PPPSA), a self-assessment tool that helps physician practices evaluate their patient-safety processes and detect areas for improvement.

In 2009, the partners released Pathways for Patient Safety™, a series of web-based modules aimed at increasing awareness, knowledge and implementation of best practices to reduce the risk of patient harm in physician practices.

Physician Practice Patient
Safety Assessment
PPPSA is designed to:

enhance physician awareness of patient safety

heighten provider knowledge of characteristics that make a practice safer

create baseline comparisons for practices to use to enhance and support patient safety

Use this tool to provide safer and better care, reduce liability and facilitate conversation among staff and physicians to identify opportunities for increasing patient safety.

Get Started With PPPSA

Pathways for
Patient Safety
Pathways for Patient Safety are a series of Web tools you can use to increase awareness, knowledge and implementation of best practices for reducing the risk of patient harm in physician practices.

The free tools will include:

Working as a Team

Assessing Where You Stand

Creating Medication Safety

Access Pathways for Patient Safety

About Us

To address the need for improved patient safety in the outpatient setting, the MGMA Center for Research, in conjunction with the Health Research and Educational Trust and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, created the Physician Practice Patient Safety Assessment, followed by Pathways for Patient Safety.

Acknowledgments – those who contributed their time and effort to make the safety assessment possible.

Contact Us
Dave Gans, MSHA, FACMPE
Vice President, Practice Management Resources
Medical Group Management Association
104 Inverness Terrace East
Englewood, CO 80112

877.ASK.MGMA (275.6462)

patientsafety@mgma.com