[afro-nets] Health Affairs: Patient Safety: How Are We Doing?

["Kathleen Ford" <KFord@projecthope.org>]

Having Zero Adverse Events In Hospitals Is Now Realistic, Says Patient Safety Pioneer

It is now feasible to talk about completely eliminating adverse events for hospital patients, one of leading figures in the field of patient safety states in a Health Affairs interview published today.

³The most exciting thing that has happened recently in patient safety -- something that has truly changed our agenda -- is that it is now apparent that we can use perfection as a benchmark,² says Lucian Leape, an adjunct professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health. Leape describes several exciting patient safety developments, such as more sophisticated methods of identifying adverse events and increased reliance on team training using simulations. He gives the media good marks for their coverage of patient safety issues, but he calls hospital CEOs a ³sea anchor² on progress in this area.

You can read Leape¹s January 2007 discussion with Peter Buerhaus, who heads the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Workforce Studies at Vanderbilt University, at:
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.26.6.w687

Health Affairs is pleased to make this article freely accessible to listserv members for two weeks.

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--
Kathleen Ford
mailto:KFord@projecthope.org