A Tale of Two Stories:

Contrasting Views of

Patient Safety Report from a Workshop on Assembling the Scientific Basis for Progress on Patient Safety National Health Care Safety Council of the National Patient Safety Foundation at the AMA

Richard I. Cook University of Chicago/

David D. Woods Ohio State University

Charlotte Miller National Patient Safety Foundation at the AMA

Supported by grants from: US Department of Veterans Affairs Agency for Health Care Policy & Research

Preface Focus on "Patient Safety" Patient safety is a growing concern for the public, policy-makers, and all those who are involved in the delivery of health care services. The phrase "patient safety" is, admittedly, only beginning to achieve currency within the health care community and is not yet widely used among the general public. However, concerns about patient safety have found expression in the media reports of highly publicized medical mistakes (e.g. "the wrong leg"); in medical journal articles examining error in medicine (see Lucian Leape's 1994 JAMA article of that title) and studies of error (e.g. work by David W. Bates et al. on medication errors); and in the organizational responses of medical, regulatory and governmental bodies (e.g. the sentinel events policy of JCAHO; the inclusion of "reducing health care errors" as a goal in the report of the President's Quality Commission). In the midst of ever-increasing technological complexity and the massive organizational changes in health care service delivery in this country, patient safety has emerged from the ambient public discussions of quality and cost as a feature that deserves special consideration. This new emphasis on patient safety was galvanized during the landmark conference "Examining Errors In Health Care: Developing a Prevention, Education and Research Agenda" held in October 1996 at the Annenberg Center for Health Sciences. It was an unprecedented multi-disciplinary gathering-every sector, from patients to practitioners, administrators, health plans, and regulators, plus researchers, ethicists, lawyers, risk managers and quality professionals, was represented. At Annenberg, we started to find new ways to talk and think about a subject that had never been considered so broadly and openly in health care before. Annenberg also marked the inception of the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) at the AMA, an independent not-for-profit organization devoted to assuring patient safety in the delivery of health care. NPSF is modeled after the Anesthesiology Patient Safety Foundation, which was founded in 1985. Assembling the Scientific Basis for Patient Safety The heightened focus on patient safety has generated a concomitant interest in learning more about the body of research on the human contributions to safety in complex systems, a body of work that has developed largely outside the health care domain. More broadly, the health care community also stands to benefit by learning how other complex, high risk enterprises-such as aviation, marine shipping, or power generation-have confronted considerable technical and political challenges in the pursuit of safe operations and public confidence. The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) at the AMA, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) are committed to learning about, using, and adding to the established research base on safety. As a first step towards realizing that goal, the NPSF, with critical financial support from the VA and AHCPR, convened the workshop "Assembling the Scientific Basis for Progress on Patient Safety" in Chicago in December of 1997. This report from the workshop provides a much-needed grounding in the technical knowledge relevant to patient safety-the "state of the art" of the multidisciplinary approaches that have proven productive in other domains and have only begun to be applied to research in health care. The report gives insight into what kinds of research are likely to yield interesting and productive results. Like the workshop itself, the report draws together a collection of threads to make a fabric upon which to pattern future work. Furthermore, the workshop has helped to achieve another important goal: stimulating the participation of the safety research community in projects within health care. Individual researchers who participated in the workshop have already become involved with our organizations in a variety of ways, for example, in the design of a national patient safety system at the VA and in the launch of the NPSF's first round of research grants. Finally, the workshop has provided the impetus for the NPSF to establish the National Health Care Safety Council. This standing body of organizational design, human factors and other experts will serve as a "technical backbone" informing all NPSF activities and as a resource for others. Patient Safety Activities of NPSF, VA and AHCPR Our shared commitment to cultivating a strong technical knowledge base for patient safety activities is part of a broader array of patient safety initiatives that our organizations are pursuing. The mission of the National Patient Safety Foundation is to measurably improve patient safety in the delivery of health care. The Foundation was launched by the American Medical Association in 1997 as an independent not-for-profit research and education organization comprising a broad partnership representing consumer advocates; health care providers; health product manufacturers; employers and payers (public and private); researchers; and regulators and policy-makers. NPSF serves as the forum for a diverse group of concerned individuals to think and talk about the issues and impediments to patient safety. The NPSF seeks to be a catalyst for action and a vehicle to support change and track improvements in patient safety. The NPSF has adopted four core strategies: 1. Promote research on human and organizational error and prevention of avoidable patient injuries in health care. 2. Promote the application of knowledge to enhance patient safety. 3. Develop information, collaborative relationships and educational approaches that advance patient safety. 4. Raise awareness and foster communications and dialogue to enhance patient safety. The US Department of Veterans Affairs launched a public-private partnership to improve patient safety in 1997. This endeavor supports the development of a number of bold initiatives focused on implementing patient safety programs within the enormous VA health care system and making the results of those efforts available as examples that can benefit health care beyond the VA system. One example of the VA's activities is the development of a patient safety reporting system, which draws on the experience of the aviation community's successful Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) and also the discussion of issues relating to incident reporting and analysis in general that took place at the workshop. The VA is also sponsoring research, pioneering system-wide implementation of patient safety interventions, and striving to create a new patient safety culture. The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR), a part of the US Department of Health and Human Services, is the lead Federal agency charged with supporting research designed to improve the quality and outcomes of health care, reduce its cost, and broaden access to and use of essential services. AHCPR assists caregivers, patients, plan managers, purchasers, and policymakers by developing and disseminating practical, science-based information about the effectiveness, cost, and cost-effectiveness of health care services and alternative approaches for organizing and delivering those services. AHCPR supported Dr. Lucian Leape's pioneering work on adverse drug events that focused the nation's attention on patient safety issues. The Agency continues to support patient safety efforts in many of its research programs, including its practice and technology assessments, outcomes and effectiveness research, organization and delivery studies, and quality measurement and improvement research. Conclusion The NPSF, VA and AHCPR are pleased to have sponsored the workshop "Assembling the Scientific Basis for Progress on Patient Safety." We anticipate that this report from the workshop will be the first in a series that, in one way or another, have their origins in the discussion that took place during those two days last December. We hope it is useful to you and that you join us in working for patient safety.

Nancy Dickey, MD National Patient Safety Foundation at the AMA

Kenneth W. Kizer, MD US Department of Veterans Affairs

John Eisenberg, MD Agency for Health Care Policy & Research

Acknowledgements

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Copyright 1998 National Patient Safety Foundation at the AMA Prepared for Web publication by Annenberg Center for Health Sciences