Designing Errors Out of Hospital Care: Facts About Hospital Patient Safety

Hospital care is designed to be safe

From drawing blood to transplanting organs, every care process hospitals follow is designed to reduce the chances of accidental injury or infection.

Hospital safety is monitored and continually improved

Federal and state law requires hospitals to maintain teams of doctors, nurses and administrators to improve the quality of care. These teams monitor patient safety and investigate when care errors, accidental injuries or unexpected infections or deaths occur. They update hospital care practices to prevent care errors from being repeated, and to include the latest findings from clinical and safety studies.

Hospitals are making significant progress in designing safety into care

To help hospitals enhance patient safety, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) adopted 11 National Patient Safety Goals. These goals represent changes in hospital processes and procedures designed to reduce the chance that common errors can occur. Detailed surveys of 3,638 health care organizations revealed better than 90% compliance with 10 of the 11 goals.

Compliance with practices called for in 2003 National Patient Safety Goals:

Requirements	Hospitals	Others*
Two patient identifiers verified before treatment	96 percent	95 percent
Time out to ensure correct procedure before surgery	91 percent	99 percent
Read-back verbal orders before initiating treatment	93 percent	95 percent
Standardized abbreviations used in medical orders and records to avoid confusion	77 percent	86 percent
Concentrated electrolytes removed from patient units	97 percent	99 percent
Limit concentrations of potentially dangerous medicines on patient units	99 percent	99 percent
Preoperative verification of supplies before surgery	98 percent	99 percent
Surgical site marking before surgery	93 percent	99 percent
Free-flow protection to limit drug infusion rates	99 percent	99 percent
Alarm maintenance to ensure alarm systems are operating	99 percent	99 percent
Alarm settings to ensure alarms go off appropriately	98 percent	99 percent

* nursing homes, ambulatory surgery centers and other non-hospital health care organizations

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View Tool Kits

Tool Kit 1: Health Care Workforce Shortage
Background Information
Fact Sheet
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Tool Kit 2: The Uninsured
Background Information
Fact Sheet
Links
Glossary of Terms

Tool Kit 3: Patient Safety
Background Information
Fact Sheet
Links
Glossary of Terms

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