Reducing defects in the use of interventions

Excerpt

The need to improve quality of health care is significant [1]. Between 44,000 and 98,000 preventable deaths occur annually in the United States; the majority of these are from things that we do to patients—mistakes of commission. The failure to provide patients the therapies they ought to receive—mistakes of omission—imparts a far larger toll. For a wide variety of conditions, the average patient in the United States can count on receiving only half of the therapies that they ought to [2]. Although alarming, these results are somewhat predictable. The majority of research funding, and thus studies, has focused on understanding disease biology and identifying effective therapies, while relatively little research has looked into methods of delivering these therapies safely, effectively, and efficiently. In general, health care has viewed the delivery of care solely as an art rather than a science. To improve safety, caregivers need to emphasize the science as much as the art of medicine by rigorously evaluating and improving the systems in which we work. …