RT Book, Section A1 Wachter, Robert M. A1 Gupta, Kiran SR Print(0) ID 1146175287 T1 The Nature and Frequency Of Medical Errors and Adverse Events T2 Understanding Patient Safety, 3e YR 2017 FD 2017 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9781259860249 LK accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1146175287 RD 2024/10/06 AB Although the four words well known to every physician—“first, do no harm”—date back to Hippocrates over 2000 years ago, and many hospitals continue the time-honored tradition of hosting Morbidity and Mortality, or “M&M,” conferences to discuss errors, medical errors have long been considered an inevitable by-product of modern medicine or the unfortunate detritus of bad providers. The dialogue around medical error only began to change in the past generation, most dramatically in late 1999, with the National Academy of Medicine's (NAM, formerly the Institute of Medicine, IOM) publication of the landmark report To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System.1 This report, which estimated that 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die each year from medical mistakes, generated tremendous public and media attention, and set the stage for unprecedented efforts to improve patient safety. Of course, these seminal works built on a rich tapestry of inquiry and leadership in the field of patient safety (Appendix III), familiar to a small group of devotees but generally unknown to mainstream providers, administrators, policymakers, and patients.