These are just some of the activities we've undertaken to help hospitals improve patient safety. Our objective is to take what we already know about the sources of error and about how to make the medication administration process safe, and put that knowledge to work. Many of our state associations are also undertaking initiatives to improve patient safety. For example, in my home state, one of the things the Minnesota Hospital and Healthcare Partnership is doing is partnering with state health plans, hospitals and caregivers to change the language used to discuss patient safety issues. We applaud the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality for taking the important step of coordinating a research agenda to study ways to improve patient safety and reduce medical errors.
Health care is a human experience - people caring for people.
Individuals, by the very nature of being human, are vulnerable to error. Although individuals are the focus of the error, errors also happen because of the systems in which people work. More often than not, a single error has multiple sources. Reducing errors also will require us to design and implement more error-resistant systems. Part of improving patient safety involves changing behavior over time - how we work, how we communicate, and how we interact with others.