Our package of reporting and commentary on patient safety was intended as a call to action for the healthcare industry, which has been far too complacent in the 20 years since the Institute of Medicine released its report, “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System.” That landmark report attempted to spark action on improving patient safety by reporting that at least 44,000 and perhaps as many as 98,000 people die in U.S. hospitals each year as a result of medical errors. But many of the report’s ambitious goals, such as creating a reliable system of measuring errors, were never realized.
The biggest hurdle? Healthcare CEOs have not made safety and quality a top priority. That’s a deep disappointment to safety and quality leaders, who hoped their industry would be much further along by now. In seven reported articles, three expert commentaries, an editorial, and a 30-year timeline, Modern Healthcare laid out evidence of the nation’s halting progress toward the goal of zero patient harm, and detailed the various factors that have gotten in the way. It also highlighted effective efforts by some organizations, notably children’s hospitals, to improve safety.
In addition, one of the articles examined the inadequacy of the measures the federal government requires healthcare providers to use for measuring quality of care, and how they’ve accomplished little in protecting patients. One of the measures may actually have contributed to unintended patient deaths. Our comprehensive package hopefully will remind healthcare leaders that patient safety and quality of care must be their core mission, and that they need to regain the urgency they felt when the “To Err is Human” report first shocked the nation’s conscience.