The New Hampshire Health Care Quality and Patient Safety Commission, established in August 2005 with the passage of HB-514 by the state legislature and made permanent in 2020 (2019), serves as a critical resource for hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers statewide.

Facilitated by the Foundation for Healthy Communities, the Commission enables health care providers to share information about adverse outcomes and prevention strategies in learning environments which foster candor and self-critical analysis while maintaining the confidentiality of the information submitted to the commission, the proceedings of the commission, and the results of the commission’s deliberations.

The charge of the Commission is to review and analyze quality of care and patient safety issues in hospitals and freestanding ambulatory surgery centers. Membership includes a representative from each of these organizations, a designee of the Commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services, and public representatives.

The members of the New Hampshire Health Care Quality and Safety Commission adopted the following principles to promote high quality and safe care to all patients seeking services in our organizations:

• Promote High Reliability Organizations
• Adopt Evidence-Based Best Practices to Improve Outcomes
• Ensure Quality and Safe Care for All

These principles are acted upon in a variety of ways including the statewide adoption of consensus-based patient safety initiatives, the commitment to accountability through data collection and reporting, the sharing of evidence-based best practices and the candid conversations related to adverse events and near misses.