Dr David Bates joined us for a special webinar to present on his paper 'Two Decades Since To Err Is Human: An Assessment of Progress and Emerging Priorities in Patient Safety'. 

 

It has been two decades since the landmark “To Err Is Human” report was released by the Institute of Medicine. 

 

Dr. Bates and Dr. Hardeep Singh wrote a piece in Health Affairs assessing the progress that has been made since then in patient safety, and also identifying new areas of safety risk. Overall, they suggest that while safety has improved, much remains to be done, especially in several specific areas including the outpatient setting, diagnostic error, and leveraging health IT to measure the frequency of safety-related events.

 

Specific prevention approaches were discussed for managing diagnostic tests, and closing referral loops.

 

Learning objectives

1) Described the progress that has been made in safety since “To Err Is Human.”
2) Reviewed new areas of safety risk.
3) Presented several specific tools which can be used to improve safety.

 

Watch the recording here:

 

 

About the Presenter

Dr. Bates is an internationally renowned expert in patient safety, using information technology to improve care, quality-of-care, cost-effectiveness, and outcomes assessment in medical practice. He is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he co-directs the Program in Clinical Effectiveness.

 

He directs the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and served as external program lead for research in the World Health Organization’s Global Alliance for Patient Safety. He is a past president of the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua) and the editor of the Journal of Patient Safety.

 

He has been elected to the Institute of Medicine, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians and the American College of Medical Informatics, and was chairman of the Board of the American Medical Informatics Association. He has published over 1,000 peer-reviewed papers and has an h-index of over 130, which ranks him among the 400 most cited biomedical researchers of any type.