Healthcare organizations have an epidemic on their hands: Medical error is causing more than 98,000 deaths a year in the nation’s hospitals. And these failures are not due to unqualified clinicians or the lack of technology,instead, evidence indicates that at least 80 percent of medical error is system derived, meaning that system flaws are setting good people up to fail.

This book provides healthcare leaders with a comprehensive blueprint for building and supporting a culture of patient safety. It includes contributions from experts who have created comprehensive and successful patient safety programs in their organizations.

The strategies and tools in this book will help you:
Assess the safety climate of your organization with a tool used at more than 500 healthcare organizations
Optimize teamwork and communication among staff members
Build practical and effective safeguards into your clinical care systems
Develop policies that hold staff accountable for their own performance but not for system failures
Encourage patient involvement in their own care and communicate openly with patients and families when an error occurs
Create an adverse-event reporting system that generates ideas for improvement
Develop an executive WalkRounds program that encourages staff to engage in open conversations with senior leaders about safety
Employ tools that will assist you in identifying potential trouble spots

This book is copublished with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the American Organization of Nurse Executives.

The Foreword is written by Lucian Leape, M.D., and Don Berwick, M.D.