Patient Safety: Patient Involvement Matters

As the co-chair of Patients for Patient Safety Canada (PFPSC), I have had the opportunity to be a guest editor for this Special Issue of Healthcare Quarterly and, consequently, have reviewed and critiqued each article. I also was a patient partner in the National Patient Safety Consortium, the work of which is the basis for the articles in this issue. Patient safety is a serious issue in Canada. In fact, unintended harm while receiving healthcare is the third leading cause of death in Canada (RiskAnalytica 2017). The papers in this issue describe initiatives that have the potential to and/or have contributed to reducing patient harm if implemented across our system and in such a way that patients and families are an integral part of the process.