We end the administrative burden of quality improvement — so you have time to actually improve care.

HB Healthcare Safety (HBHS) is a Social Benefit Corporation founded in 2015 through Mayo Clinic Ventures by Dr. Jeanne M. Huddleston and Lacey A. Hart. HBHS helps hospitals run a peer-reviewed case review methodology, supported by Healthcare Safeware® (part of the Safety Learning System®), to uncover safety failures that traditional event reporting misses.

Most peer review and M&M programs focus on whether a death was preventable. HBHS's methodology, developed at Mayo Clinic, goes further: it captures findings even when there was no negative impact on the patient, which is why hospitals using it typically surface about 7x more opportunities for improvement than traditional reporting alone.

The Loved One Lens is the question reviewers are trained to ask during every case: would you just watch and hold your mother's hand, or would you be in the hallway asking for help? Reframing each case this way is what HBHS credits for surfacing safety issues a purely clinical review can miss.

Healthcare Safeware® is built to FedRAMP Moderate authorization standards, the same security baseline the federal government requires for systems handling sensitive but unclassified data, and it already runs inside VA facilities.

A PSO, established under the federal Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act, gives hospitals legal privilege and confidentiality protections when they share case review data for learning purposes. HBHS operates its own PSO so member hospitals can report and analyze events without that data being discoverable in litigation.

The methodology started with hospital mortality review but has since been adapted for community hospitals, the VA, mental health providers, and even a state department of corrections for suicide prevention — the underlying case review process applies anywhere one person is responsible for another person's care.

Partner organizations have reported measurable gains including reduced mortality, with one reported reduction of roughly 25% over two years of running the Safety Learning System®, alongside better detection of hidden care gaps and stronger frontline team confidence.

Email johnson@hbhealthcaresafety.org or call (507) 316-1118. HBHS works directly with hospital quality, safety, and risk leaders to scope a collaborative membership or a Healthcare Safeware® implementation.