**Philip N. Salen, MD**

**1**

**Chapter 1**

**1. Introduction**

Introductory Chapter: Patient

Among the most important aspects when creating, developing, and overseeing healthcare facilities and systems are patient and staff safety [1]. The publication of The Institute of Medicine's *To Err is Human* more than 2 decades ago brought muchneeded attention to the issue of patient safety in the United States and worldwide by exposing the previously underappreciated impact of medical errors on patient outcomes and illuminating the potential benefits of enhancing safety as an essential core value by US medical practitioners and within US health care institutions [2, 3]. The report endorsed several important agenda items, most notably: errors occur frequently, they have clinical and financial impact, systems-related pitfalls amplify

The underappreciation of the patient safety issue can be clearly seen when exam-

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ ) has promoted patient and public safety by encouraging patient safety research during this time in part by focusing on the delineation of error, hospital accreditation, and healthcare directives [2, 4]. Healthcare leadership both institutionally and clinically has focused on patient safety as a metric, utilizing objective scorecards and pay for performance measures [5, 6]. In the context of this chapter, the definition of the phrase "culture of safety" refers to the sum of individual and group ethos, conducts, behaviors, capabilities, and patterns of practice that reflect the adherence to professional and organizational safe

The primary intent of this textbook, *Contemporary Issues in Patient Safety Volume 2,* is to present a wide-ranging discussion of various, essential patient safety principles and practices to enhance current patterns and to help create patient safety algorithms, systems, and symbioses necessary for the required advancements in clinical outcomes

ining the original report [2]. The Institute of Medicine (now called the National Academy of Medicine) reported that medical errors resulted in between 44,000 and 98,000 potentially avoidable deaths annually in the US alone, which provided additional impetus to a heightened focus on patient safety both in the US and internationally [2, 3]. To give a real-life perspective, the above range of patient safety-eventattributable mortalities is equivalent roughly to an entire population of a small city,

Safety Remains an Elusive,

miscues, and preclusion of errors will enhance patient safety [2].

and consistently so, year after year.

related to patient and staff safety [8].

practice standards [7].

Fast-Moving Target

*Philip N. Salen and Stanislaw P. Stawicki*

Department of Emergency Medicine, St. Luke's University Health Network, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

#### **Stanislaw P. Stawicki, MD, MBA**

Department of Research and Innovation, St. Luke's University Health Network, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA
