Here are five highlights:
1. The report calls for a total systems approach and the establishment of a culture of safety.
2. The authors suggest eight proposals for improvement:
- Ensure leaders establish a culture of safety
- Create centralized oversight of patient safety
- Create common set of safety metrics
- Increase research funding in patient safety
- Analyze safety across care continuum
- Support healthcare workforce
- Work with patients and families for safe care
- Ensure technology is safe
3. Donald M. Berwick, MD, president emeritus and senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and lecturer in healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and Kaveh Shojania, MD, director for the Centre for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at the University of Toronto in Canada, led the panel of authors.
4. Although the healthcare industry has made strides in hospital care safety, care is increasingly given outside hospitals, today.
5. American International Group provided a grant for the report, but did not influence the content.
“Fifteen years ago, patient safety represented a new endeavor for healthcare…” said Dr. Shojania. “Today, interest has shifted toward value, patient-centered care and other domains of quality.”
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