GUARDIANS OF THE PSSM · PATIENTS AND CAREGIVERS
Your experience can help make hospital care safer
Whether you are preparing for a hospital stay, supporting someone you love, or making sense of harm that occurred, you deserve clear information and a meaningful voice in care.
The Guardians of the PSSM can help you prepare, ask questions, and connect your experience to the patient-safety practices hospitals are expected to have in place.
Start with what you need today
I am preparing for a hospital stay—or supporting someone who is
Hospital care can feel overwhelming. It is not always obvious what questions to ask, what information you should receive, or what to do when something does not seem right.
Our patient and caregiver resources can help you prepare for conversations, keep important information organized, and participate more confidently in decisions about care.
or someone I care for experienced harm
Your experience matters. Taking time to organize what happened can help you decide what questions to ask and what kind of response you need from the hospital.
The Patient Safety Structural Measure provides a useful framework for looking beyond one event and asking whether the hospital had the leadership, culture, transparency, learning systems, and patient-engagement practices needed to prevent harm.
I want my experience to prevent harm to someone else
Patient and caregiver stories can make safety standards real. The Guardians develop stories that connect lived experience with specific PSSM practices—showing what happened, what should have been in place, and what safer care could look like.
You control whether you take this step. PFPS US will work with potential storytellers to protect privacy, verify details, and determine whether a story is appropriate for development and publication.
The PSSM in plain language
The Patient Safety Structural Measure, or PSSM, is a CMS hospital quality measure focused on the systems and culture needed for safer care.
It asks hospitals to report whether they have implemented patient-safety practices across five areas:
- Leadership commitment to eliminating preventable harm
- Strategic planning and organizational policy
- Cultural safety and a learning health system
- Accountability and transparency
- Patient and family engagement
The PSSM does not tell the full story of safety at a hospital. It does give patients, families, hospital teams, and communities a shared vocabulary for asking whether essential safety structures are truly in place.
Turn experience into action
Describe what happened
Write down the sequence of events, the questions you asked, the information you received, and anything that did not seem right. Focus on what you directly experienced or observed.
Connect the experience to a safety practice
Use the PSSM domains and PFPS US tools to identify which systems or practices may be relevant. This can help turn a broad concern into a focused question.
Decide what response you want
You may want an explanation, a meeting, a review, evidence of improvement, or an opportunity to help the organization learn. A clear request makes it easier for others to understand the action you are seeking.
Consider sharing your story
If you choose, your experience may help hospital leaders, healthcare teams, policymakers, and other patients understand why authentic implementation matters.
A note about urgent concerns
PFPS US provides education and advocacy resources. This page does not provide medical, legal, or emergency advice. For an urgent medical concern, contact the patient’s care team or emergency services. For questions about complaints, records, or legal rights, consider seeking appropriate professional guidance.
You deserve to be heard, and to have a meaningful role in safer care
Start with the resource that meets your needs today. When you are ready, the Guardians can help you connect your experience to broader patient-safety improvement.