QuestionPro Buys Patient Safety Group

Online survey and research services provider QuestionPro has acquired Patient Safety Group (PSG), which offers a tech platform to help health systems and hospitals collect and analyze patient and employee safety insights. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

PSG administers AHRQ (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) surveys known as SOPS (Surveys on Patient Safety Culture) - which are designed to capture real-time feedback on patient safety standards for integrated delivery networks (IDN) or health systems, and identify areas for improvement. The data collected includes all aspects of patient safety culture, such as communication, teamwork, leadership, hospital safety policies and procedures.

QuestionPro has acquired the business from Smart Patients, an online community where patients and their families affected by a variety of illnesses can learn from each other about treatments. PSG will now operate as 'Patient Safety Group, a QuestionPro company', and its technology will be migrated into QuestionPro's research, insights and experience management platform. The takeover adds to QuestionPro's recent acquisition of Pundit Consultantz, a healthcare innovation and go-to-market commercialization consultancy.

Kathryn Burn, CEO of Smart Patients, says the deal means her firm's partners can tap into QuestionPro's expertise to provide insights into the 'intersection' of safety culture and institutional culture. Arti Bedi Pullins (pictured), Pundit's founder and now President and Chief Healthcare Officer of QuestionPro, adds: 'The addition of PSG's data collection platform, combined with QuestionPro's existing analytics and insights collection technology gives healthcare systems a fully integrated and interoperable platform to deliver better patient care'.

Web sites: www.questionpro.com, www.patientsafetygroup.org and www.smartpatients.com .