Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, Kohn LT, Corrigan JM, Donaldson MS, et al.
. Date of publication 2000 Jan 1;volume ():.
1. To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System.
Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Quality of Health Care in America; Kohn
LT, Corrigan JM, Donaldson MS, editors.
Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2000.
Experts estimate that as many as 98,000 people die in any given year from medical
errors that occur in hospitals. That's more than die from motor vehicle
accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS--three causes that receive far more public
attention. Indeed, more people die annually from medication errors than from
workplace injuries. Add the financial cost to the human tragedy, and medical
error easily rises to the top ranks of urgent, widespread public problems. To Err
Is Human breaks the silence that has surrounded medical errors and their
consequence--but not by pointing fingers at caring health care professionals who
make honest mistakes. After all, to err is human. Instead, this book sets forth a
national agenda--with state and local implications--for reducing medical errors
and improving patient safety through the design of a safer health system. This
volume reveals the often startling statistics of medical error and the disparity
between the incidence of error and public perception of it, given many patients'
expectations that the medical profession always performs perfectly. A careful
examination is made of how the surrounding forces of legislation, regulation, and
market activity influence the quality of care provided by health care
organizations and then looks at their handling of medical mistakes. Using a
detailed case study, the book reviews the current understanding of why these
mistakes happen. A key theme is that legitimate liability concerns discourage
reporting of errors--which begs the question, "How can we learn from our
mistakes?" Balancing regulatory versus market-based initiatives and public versus
private efforts, the Institute of Medicine presents wide-ranging recommendations
for improving patient safety, in the areas of leadership, improved data
collection and analysis, and development of effective systems at the level of
direct patient care. To Err Is Human asserts that the problem is not bad people
in health care--it is that good people are working in bad systems that need to be
made safer. Comprehensive and straightforward, this book offers a clear
prescription for raising the level of patient safety in American health care. It
also explains how patients themselves can influence the quality of care that they
receive once they check into the hospital. This book will be vitally important to
federal, state, and local health policy makers and regulators, health
professional licensing officials, hospital administrators, medical educators and
students, health caregivers, health journalists, patient advocates--as well as
patients themselves. First in a series of publications from the Quality of Health
Care in America, a project initiated by the Institute of Medicine
PMID: 25077248
