A substantial body of evidence points to medical errors as a leading cause of death and injury. Multiple studies have demonstrated that between 3 and 4% of patients experience injuries as a result of medical management during a hospital admission. Approximately half of the adverse injuries are preventable. Deaths due to preventable adverse events exceed the deaths attributable to motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer and AIDS. Total national costs are estimated to be between $37.6 billion and $50 billion for adverse events and between $17 billion and $29 billion for preventable adverse events, accounting for approximately 4% and 2 % of national healthcare expenditures.
The Making Healthcare SAFER initiative is a hospital wide interspecialty, interprofessional initiative to decrease learner associated procedural errors that can lead to patient morbidity and mortality. This includes both mechanical complications as well as health care – associated infections. Both of these complications increase the cost of the care we deliver to our patients as well as affecting our national quality scores and health system reputation.
All GME learners are responsible for providing the highest level of patient safety. This includes basic simple effective actions such as hand washing and foaming both on entrance and exit of a patient’s room. The Making Healthcare SAFER initiative is divided into 4 distinct parts:
