Background on Patient Safety in Health Care
With the release of the Institute of Medicine’s To Err Is Human report in 1999, American national news networks reacted strongly to hearing that at least 44000 and possibly as many as 98000 people die in the United States hospitals each year as a result of medical errors and that more than one million patients are seriously harmed. The report stated that deaths due to preventable adverse events exceed the deaths attributable to motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer as well as other often fatal diseases. In the end, this report may have served as a call for action for healthcare providers to make patient safety a priority. It recognized that medical errors are seldom caused exclusively by the actions of a single provider, rather errors are typically the result of a complex series of system-related problems. As a result, the report called for the healthcare sector to systematically integrate design safety into the processes of care (Canadian Patient Safety Institute, 2011).
Following the release of this work, the patient safety movement began to take hold outside of the United States with medical error publications being released by the British Medical Journal as well as the British National Health Service and the UK Department of Health’s creation of the National Patient Safety Agency. By 2001 the Australian Council for Safety and Quality in Health Care was established. Since 2006 this body was renamed the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.
By 2001, interest and momentum in patient safety and the avoidance of patient harm began to gain momentum in Canada seeing the development of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute by 2003 and Baker, Norton et al’s 2004 The Canadian Adverse Events Study: the incidence of adverse events among hospital patients in Canada (see link to study below). In 2005 the Canadian Patient Safety Institute launched “Safer Healthcare Now” which has become the Institute’s flagship program by being invested in frontline providers and the delivery system to improve the safety of patient care regionally throughout Canada through the implementation of interventions known to reduce avoidable harm.
More recently, The Economics of Patient Safety in Acute Care study commissioned and released by the Canadian Patient Safety Institute and the Ontario Hospital Association in 2012, estimates the cost of preventable patient safety incidents at $397 million. Calculating the estimated economic burden of preventable patient safety incidents in acute care can help policy and decision makers to explore ways to improve patient safety and avoid unnecessary healthcare expenditures.(Canadian Patient Safety Institute, 2012)
With the release of the Institute of Medicine’s To Err Is Human report in 1999, American national news networks reacted strongly to hearing that at least 44000 and possibly as many as 98000 people die in the United States hospitals each year as a result of medical errors and that more than one million patients are seriously harmed. The report stated that deaths due to preventable adverse events exceed the deaths attributable to motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer as well as other often fatal diseases. In the end, this report may have served as a call for action for healthcare providers to make patient safety a priority. It recognized that medical errors are seldom caused exclusively by the actions of a single provider, rather errors are typically the result of a complex series of system-related problems. As a result, the report called for the healthcare sector to systematically integrate design safety into the processes of care (Canadian Patient Safety Institute, 2011).
Following the release of this work, the patient safety movement began to take hold outside of the United States with medical error publications being released by the British Medical Journal as well as the British National Health Service and the UK Department of Health’s creation of the National Patient Safety Agency. By 2001 the Australian Council for Safety and Quality in Health Care was established. Since 2006 this body was renamed the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care.
By 2001, interest and momentum in patient safety and the avoidance of patient harm began to gain momentum in Canada seeing the development of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute by 2003 and Baker, Norton et al’s 2004 The Canadian Adverse Events Study: the incidence of adverse events among hospital patients in Canada (see link to study below). In 2005 the Canadian Patient Safety Institute launched “Safer Healthcare Now” which has become the Institute’s flagship program by being invested in frontline providers and the delivery system to improve the safety of patient care regionally throughout Canada through the implementation of interventions known to reduce avoidable harm.
More recently, The Economics of Patient Safety in Acute Care study commissioned and released by the Canadian Patient Safety Institute and the Ontario Hospital Association in 2012, estimates the cost of preventable patient safety incidents at $397 million. Calculating the estimated economic burden of preventable patient safety incidents in acute care can help policy and decision makers to explore ways to improve patient safety and avoid unnecessary healthcare expenditures.(Canadian Patient Safety Institute, 2012)
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