[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

GE Healthcare Performance Solutions, a unit of GE Healthcare is launching a 90-day evaluation for its Global Patient Safety Network (GPSN), an online community for hospitals to collaborate with peers around the world. The GPSN will enable providers to meet the needs of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish Hospital Engagement Networks (HENs), says GE.

The Global Patient Safety Network is an online patient safety community operated under the GE Patient Safety Organization (GE PSO). The 90-day evaluation will run from April through June, and offers hospitals collaboration with local and global peers and evaluate the GPSN without cost.

The GPSN is a community of providers from around the world – US, UK and Canada – sharing knowledge about how to improve patient safety in a private, secure and near real-time environment. Within the larger GPSN community of hospitals and individuals, private sub-communities can also be established and “gardened” by leaders. GE plans to actively engage with participating hospitals during the evaluation to foster the design of the network with the goal of releasing a commercial offering in 2012.

The initiation of the GPSN evaluation comes on the heels of the HHS’ recent announcement that as a part of the Partnership for Patients (P4P) initiative, a nationwide public-private collaboration to improve the quality, safety, and affordability of healthcare for all Americans, $218 million will be designated toward developing Hospital Engagement Networks.