What stands in the way of improved healthcare safety

The complexity of modern medicine is both miraculous and a source of many of its errors. This complexity makes it difficult for a leader to have a clear grasp of where to begin. It also engenders a resistance to change that those aspiring to higher levels of healthcare safety may encounter as they work to improve the safety of their organizations. You may encounter 

This conclusion would be mistaken. There is great variability among organizations in healthcare safety performance. For example, when HealthGrades, Inc., analyzed publicly reported information on Medicare patients in all U.S. hospitals annually during 2003 through 2005, it found the following  

So there are definitely ways to do things better. Furthermore, leaders who have tackled this issue have been able to show results rapidly, and they have found that even small improvements have substantial short-term payoffs. Table 1-1 summarizes some of the efforts described in the Commonwealth Fund s 2006 report. Committed to Safety Ten Case Studies on Reducing Harm to Patients.  

HealthGrades Fourth Annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study (Golden, CO Health Grades, Inc., 2007), pp. 2-3, 5, and appendix. 

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