The Patient Safety Indicators (PSIs) are a set of indicators providing information on potential in hospital complications and adverse events following surgeries, procedures, and childbirth. The PSIs were developed after a comprehensive literature review, analysis of ICD-9-CM codes, review by a clinician panel, implementation of risk adjustment, and empirical analyses.
The PSIs can be used to help hospitals identify potential adverse events that might need further study; provide the opportunity to assess the incidence of adverse events and in hospital complications using administrative data found in the typical discharge record; include indicators for complications occurring in hospital that may represent patient safety events; and, indicators also have area level analogs designed to detect patient safety events on a regional level.