Patient experience, safety, and quality

Abstract

With awareness of the significant morbidity and mortality associated with medical error, and of how poorly healthcare has compared with other service industries in terms of customers’ experience, there has been a growth, over the past two decades, in initiatives to improve patient safety, quality of care/quality of service, and patient experience. In this context, we believe that pediatric psychosomatic medicine plays an indispensable role in simultaneously promoting these three important and closely related aspects of healthcare, not just for somatic symptom disorders, which classically are associated with psychosomatic medicine, but for all clinical situations.