National patient safety initiatives: Moving beyond what is necessary

Abstract

Ilan and Donchin have compared Israel and Canada's experiences in setting a national patient safety agenda. We broaden this comparison to include the U.S. experience, and suggest that there are three additional key steps which will be important in any national patient safety agenda, and which Israel in particular should consider. These are 1) using health information technology (HIT) to directly improve patient safety, 2) dissemination and broad use of checklists, and 3) measuring patient safety over time at the national level. Especially because of its already substantial commitment to HIT and well-developed HIT sector, Israel has a major opportunity to move forward rapidly in this area and to achieve broad impact on the safety front.