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First published August 4, 2003 as JAMIA PrePrint; doi:10.1197/jamia.M1339
Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 2003;10(6):531-540
© 2003 American Medical Informatics Association

A more recent version of this article appeared on November 1, 2003
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Submitted on January 29, 2003
Accepted on April 23, 2003

Database design to ensure anonymous study of medical errors: a Report from the ASIPS Collaborative

Wilson D. Pace MD1*, Elizabeth W. Staton MSTC2, Gregory S. Higgins2, Deborah S. Main PhD2, David R. West PhD2, and Daniel M. Harris PhD3

Affiliation of the authors: 1 Department of Family Medicine, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Aurora, CO; 2 Department of Family Medicine, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, CO; 3 The CNA Corporation

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Medical error reporting systems are important information sources for designing strategies to improve the safety of health care. Applied Strategies for Improving Patient Safety (ASIPS) is a multi-institutional, practice-based research project that collects and analyzes data on primary care medical errors and develops interventions to reduce error. The voluntary ASIPS Patient Safety Reporting System captures anonymous and confidential reports of medical errors. Confidential reports, which are quickly de-identified, provide better detail than do anonymous reports, however, concerns exist about the confidentiality of those reports should the database be subject to legal discovery or other security breaches. Standard database elements, for example, serial ID numbers, date/time stamps, and backups, could enable an outsider to link an ASIPS report to a specific medical error. We present the design and implementation of a database and administrative system that reduces this risk, facilitates research, and maintains near anonymity of the events, practices, and clinicians.




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