Patient safety in anesthesia: learning from the culture of high-reliability organizations.
There has been an increased awareness of and interest in patient safety and improved outcomes, as well as a growing body of evidence substantiating medical error as a leading cause of death and injury in the United States. According to The Joint Commission, US hospitals demonstrate improvements in health care quality and patient safety. Although this progress is encouraging, much room for improvement remains. High-reliability organizations, industries that deliver reliable performances in the face of complex working environments, can serve as models of safety for our health care system until plausible explanations for patient harm are better understood.
Department of Nurse Anesthesia, School of Allied Health Professions, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1200 East Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23298, USA. Electronic address: smwright@vcu.edu.
Suzanne M
SM
Wright
D000758:Anesthesia; D019300:Medical Errors; D009938:Organizations / Q000458:organization & administration; D061214:Patient Safety
Complex systems; Education and training; High-reliability organizations; Human error; Human factors; Patient safety