The Patient Safety Handbook

This book was created out of the belief that the science of discovery must begin to move more rapidly toward the science of aplication. Its premise is that the focus on the number of medical errors (the estimate is that 98,000 patients die annually from preventible medical error), must give way to a committment to fix the problem. In this handbook the reader will be provided with some of the background that we believe is necessary to see the context and scope of the problem and to understand the activities and practices associated with the delivery of health care that must be modified if we are truly to create a consistently safe environment for patients.