I have found during my experience as both a nurse and quality professional that frontline staff’s perception of medical errors is of a punitive nature. Even questions asked about what could potentially harm your patient today, while in your care, provoke that look of fear and sometimes even defensiveness. There truly appears to be a…

The deep-water oil blow-out and recently capped “leak” (which seems like an inadequate word) in the Gulf is nauseating in its own right when one considers the environmental effects. Because this is a patient safety blog I’ll turn my thoughts a bit to disasters and tragedies and how they make me reflect on safety issues….

Welcome to the inaugural blog of the Washington Patient Safety Coalition! We welcome your comments and suggestions for topics. In May I had the opportunity to attend the National Patient Safety Foundation Congress for the first time.  I’ll share my two major impressions, one of which is directly related to the event’s content and the other…