Patient safety - A challenge for clinical engineering

Abstract

Every tenth patient in US and European hospitals suffers from preventable harm and adverse effects related to his or her care. As adverse events also carry a high financial cost, patient safety remains a major global priority. Often forgotten in discussions on the necessary actions to improve patient safety, clinical engineering is one of the major pillars for safe health care. Realizing the huge potential of contributing to the world-wide efforts to provide safer care, the clinical engineering community has accepted the challenge to take a lead in providing a safer environment for patients.