(1) The Legislature finds that:

(a) In 1999, the Institute of Medicine released a report entitled "To Err is Human" that described medical errors as the eighth leading cause of death in the United States;

(b) To address these errors, the health care system must be able to create a learning environment in which health care providers and facilities will feel safe reporting adverse health events and near misses in order to improve patient safety;

(c) To facilitate the learning environment, health care providers and facilities must have legal protections that will allow them to review protected health information so that they may collaborate in the development and implementation of patient safety improvement strategies;

(d) To carry out a program to promote patient safety, a policy should be established which provides for and promotes patient safety organizations; and

(e) There are advantages to having private nonprofit corporations act as patient safety organizations rather than a state agency, including the enhanced ability to obtain grants and donations to carry out patient safety improvement programs.

(2) It is the intent of the Legislature to encourage the establishment of broad-based patient safety organizations.