Textbook of Patient Safety and Clinical Risk Management

Abstract

Actions to improve patient safety have shown widely varying degrees of effectiveness. Usually hospitals are focused on the occurrence of adverse events and the level of adversity to the patient in the contexts of insurance premiums and the costs of malpractice. Furthermore, even risk management units within hospitals focus on these factors, when comparing the performance of departments or wards. However, for the improvement of patient safety in clinical practice, a different approach is required, in which the prevention of patient harm and effectiveness of clinical actions is standardized and assessed on the basis of scientific evidence.