Patient safety in women's health care: a framework for progress

Patient safety research is hampered by lack of a clear taxonomy and difficulty in detecting errors. Preventable adverse events occur in medicine because of human fallibility, complexity, system deficiencies and vulnerabilities in defensive barriers. To make medicine safer there needs to be a culture change, beginning with the leadership. Latent systems deficiencies must be identified and corrected before they cause harm. Defensive barriers can be improved to intercept errors before patients are harmed. Strategies include: (1) providing leadership at all levels; (2) respecting human limits in equipment and process design; (3) functioning collaboratively in a team model with mutual respect; (4) creating a learning environment where errors can be analyzed without fear of retribution; and (5) anticipating the unexpected with analysis of high-risk processes and well-designed contingency plans. The ideal of a 100% safe health-care system is unattainable, but there must be continual improvement.