European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

PATIENT SAFETY: ERROR REDUCTION IN HEALTH CARE

*Dr. M. Padmaja

ABSTRACT

Patient safety is a top priority. Strong health care teams reduce infection rates, put checks in place to prevent mistakes and ensure strong lines of communication between hospital staff, patients and families. As many as 440,000 people die every year due to hospital errors, injuries, accidents, and infections. Every year, 1 out of every 25 patients develops an infection while in the hospital—an infection that didn‘t have to happen. A medicare patient has 1 in 4 chance of experiencing injury, harm or death when admitted to a hospital. Today alone, more than 1000 people are dying because of a preventable hospital error. It‘s important to remember that most hospital errors can be prevented. Hospitals need to work hard every day to protect their patients from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections. To ensure safe care, it is important to be an active member of the health care team. One of the most significant problems with today‘s health care system is the failure to make safety and quality information available to the public. But public deserves this information so they can make informed choices about where to receive care.

Keywords: Patient safety, health care team, error, injury, quality.