Why Is Patient Safety Important

Since the Institute of Medicine report,“To Err is Human,”highlighted the issue of hospitalized patients being harmed or dying because of preventable medical errors, hospitals have increased awareness of patient safety concerns and have made subtle improvements in quality and patient safety in the last decade and a half. The use of technology, information accessibility, communication, patient collaboration and multi-professional teamwork are successful strategies to reach the goal of patient safety within healthcare organizations; however, despite improvement in problem areas, such as hospital acquired infections and wrong site, wrong procedure surgeries, the improvement increase in patient safety has been limited. For example, the Centers