RT Book, Section
A1 Wachter, Robert M.
SR Print(0)
ID 56250001
T1 Chapter 1. The Nature and Frequency of Medical Errors and Adverse Events
T2 Understanding Patient Safety, 2e
YR 2012
FD 2012
PB The McGraw-Hill Companies
PP New York, NY
SN 978-0-07-176578-7
LK accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=56250001
RD 2024/04/18
AB Although  Hippocrates  said  “first,  do  no  harm”  over  2000  years  ago  and  many  hospitals  have  long  hosted  conferences  to  discuss  errors  (Morbidity  and  Mortality,  or  “M&M,”  conferences),  until  recently  medical  errors  were  considered  an  inevitable  by-product  of  modern  medicine  or  the  unfortunate  detritus  of  bad  providers.  This  began  to  change  in  late  1999,  with  the  Institute  of  Medicine's  (IOM)  publication  of  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.