Science of Safe Care : Understanding Patient Centered Care

Medical errors may be unpreventable, but preventing harm to the patient is often an option. Unfortunately no progress has taken place over the last decade in reducing the preventable medical mishaps. In 1998, the landmark IOM study estimated 98,000 preventable fatalities per year. The latest research shows an estimate of 210,000 to 440,0000 preventable fatalities a year! Paradoxically, healthcare continues to be decades behind other industries in terms of creating safer systems. Errors in healthcare are usually provoked by weak or inadequate systems within and across healthcare organizations.