Background
History of Patient Safety
According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, the evidence suggests that, despite decades of “patient safety improvement” initiatives, approximately 134 million adverse safety events (including inaccurate and delayed diagnosis) are still occurring globally each year. In the United States, an Office of Inspector General (OIG) report revealed that 1 in 4 Medicare patients experience avoidable adverse events in hospitals. Moreover, the adverse effects of unsafe care disproportionately impact socially marginalized populations.
Latest Advancements
In response to this sobering data, there have been recent global and US national calls to collect new data directly from patients – via patient-reported experience (PRE) and patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures – to help drive new care improvement efforts. This strategy is illustrated by the OECD’s 2018 report entitled, “Measuring Patient Safety: Opening the Black Box,” that identified patient-reported measures as a required component of every safety measurement system. WHO’s Global Patient Safety Action Plan calls on Member States to “Create mechanisms that collect patient reported experiences and outcomes that highlight patient safety to foster the development of more effective solutions." Additionally, in the report to the President by the President’s Council of Advisor’s on Science and Technology (PCAST), there is a recommendation to “Develop and validate new questions focused on racial/ethnic bias and patient safety in the patient-reported measures collected in the HCAHPS.”
