Temporal trends in rates of patient harm from medical care.

摘要

to the editor: Landrigan and colleagues report on the lack of progress in patient safety in selected North Carolina hospitals. They do not report details regarding the nature of the pro-safety interventions undertaken by these hospitals other than prior participation in statewide safety efforts. Lack of progress in health care safety is linked with failure to use rigorous forms of analysis and rules implementation based on failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), which is the accepted safety model in engineering and industrial processes.