[Patient safety - definition and epidemiology of adverse events, errors and incidents]

Multiple studies in the last years on patient safety brought this issue into focus for healthcare workers, but also politics and public. It is evident, that patient safety in health care is not longer a "nice to have", but an absolutely "must", analog others high risk industries. This article presents the most important basis principles of patient safety. The development from the error- to the safety culture is described. The terms adverse event, error and incident are defined as well other important terms and possible human pitfalls. At the end epidemiology correlations are presented, to underline the importance of patient safety in medicine. This article should help to understand the terminology of patient safety, to be able to understand the real important ideas and context of patient safety.