To Err Is Human: Building A Safer Health System

Product Description

Experts estimate that as many as 98000 people die in any given year from medical errors that occur in hospitals That's more than die from motor vehicle accidents breast cancer or AIDS--three causes that receive far more public attention Indeed more people die annually from medication errors than from workplace injuries Add the financial cost to the human tragedy & medical error easily rises to the top ranks of urgent widespread public problems To Err Is Human breaks the silence that has surrounded medical errors & their consequence--but not by pointing fingers at caring health care professionals who make honest mistakes After all to err is human Instead this book sets forth a national agenda--with state & local implications--for reducing medical errors & improving patient safety through the design of a safer health system This volume reveals the often startling statistics of medical error & the disparity between the incidence of error & public perception of it given many patients' expectations that the medical profession always performs perfectly A careful examination is made from how the surrounding forces of legislation regulation & market activity influence the quality of care provided by health care organizations & then looks at their handling of medical mistakes Using a detailed case study the book reviews the current understanding of why these mistakes happen A key theme is that legitimate liability concerns discourage reporting of errors--which begs the question How can we learn from our mistakes? Balancing regulatory versus market-based initiatives & public versus private efforts the Institute of Medicine presents wide-ranging recommendations for improving patient safety in the areas of leadership enhanced data collection & analysis & development of effective systems at the level of direct patient care To Err Is Human asserts that the problem is not bad people in health care--it is that good people are working in bad systems that need to be made safer Comprehensive & straightforward this book offers a clear prescription for raising the level of patient safety in American health care It also explains how patients themselves can influence the quality of care that they receive once they check into the hospital This book will be vitally important to federal state & local health policy makers & regulators health professional licensing officials hospital administrators medical educators & students health caregivers health journalists patient advocates--as well as patients themselves First in a series of publications from the Quality of Health Care in America a project initiated by the Institute of Medicine