Error Reduction in Health Care A Systems Approach to Improving Patient Safety

Completely revised and updated this book offers a step-by-step guide for implementing the Institute of Medicine guidelines to reduce the frequency of errors in health care services and mitigate the impact of those errors that do occur. It explores the fundamental concepts and tools of error reduction, and shows how to design an effective error reduction initiative. The book pinpoints how to reduce and eliminate medical mistakes that threaten the health and safety of patients and teaches how to identify the root cause of medical errors, implement strategies for improvement, and monitor the effectiveness of these new approaches.

Patrice L. Spath, MA, RHIT, is president of Brown-Spath Associates and assistant professor in the Department of Health Services Administration at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. She serves on the advisory board for WebMM, an online case-based journal and forum on patient safety and health care quality sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Spath has authored numerous books and journal articles on health care performance improvement and patient safety.