Patient safety reporting and learning infrastructure

(a) In general Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality shall develop and submit to Congress a strategic plan to modernize Federal approaches and establish mechanisms that enable patients, families, and caregivers to voluntarily report their experiences of diagnostic error (as defined by the National Academy of Medicine in the consensus study report titled Improving Diagnosis in Health Care 2015) and other patient-safety adverse events and near misses (as defined in the Patient Safety Network primer titled Adverse Events, Near Misses, and Errors, published on December 15, 2024) to a system that meets the requirements established in subsection (c). (b) Restrictions on the use of reports (1) In general Notwithstanding any other provision of law, reports collected under subsection (a) shall not be admissible in civil or criminal proceedings, and shall be used solely for public health, improvement, and learning purposes. (2) Clarification Reporting under subsection (a) shall not preclude or affect the legal rights of patients or family members or caregivers of patients or remedies available to such parties. (c) Purposes The strategic plan required under subsection (a) shall— (1) modernize Federal approaches to capturing and using patient-reported safety information, in a manner that— (A) safeguards patient privacy; (B) facilitates integration, as appropriate, with existing data and learning systems within the Department of Health and Human Services, including the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the National Institutes of Health, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health; (C) considers the use of modern data-science methods, including natural-language processing and artificial intelligence, to enable detection of diagnostic and other safety signals from patient-reported data and narrative; and (D) identifies opportunities to align such reporting mechanisms with existing Federal patient-experience (such as Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems), quality-measurement, and safety programs to minimize burden and maximize learning; and (2) recommend a coordinated Federal approach for piloting, evaluating, and scaling such reporting mechanisms to support continuous improvement in diagnostic safety and quality. (d) Consultation In developing the strategic plan under subsection (a), the Director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality shall consult with the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, the Chief Data Officer of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer of the Department of Health and Human Services. (e) Authorization of appropriations (1) In general To carry out this section, there are authorized to be appropriated $20,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2027 through 2030. (2) Availability Amounts appropriated under this section shall remain available until expended.