Fighting a common enemy: A catalyst to close intractable safety gaps

Abstract

Since March 2020, the world has faced a singular threat: COVID-19. The shared commitment and responsibility uniting everyone within and outside of healthcare to bend the COVID-19 curve has been unparalleled. Prior to the pandemic, this type of shared commitment has been discouragingly lacking for other major healthcare concerns such as patient safety.1 Reasons for this include organisational leaders who are incentivised to focus on activities essential for reimbursement and quality measurement rather than those involving the promotion of safety culture and implementation of systemsbased approaches to improve safety, compounded by lack of clear ownership and accountability to solve long-standing safety challenges.