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Patient Safety
Ways to Define Quality: Patient Safety
Medical errors are one of the nation’s leading causes of injury and death. A report in recent years issued by the Institute of Medicine estimated that as many as 44,000 to 98,000 people die each year as the result of medical errors.
Medical errors happen when something that was planned as a part of medical care doesn’t work out or when the wrong plan was used to begin with. Medical errors can occur anywhere in the health care system. They can happen during even the most routine tasks. The majority of errors stem from a break down in communication or within a complex health care process.
At Sentara, we know that there is no more serious responsibility than the one we take on every day, with literally thousands of patients entrusted to our care.
In keeping with a major national initiative, Sentara has many effective patient safety programs in place and more coming on line every day. Many are the result of creative ideas from our employees, the front-line clinicians and caregivers who saw what was working — and what wasn't. They took the initiative to fix it and to make suggestions for programs and policies to better safeguard patients.
More about Patient Safety
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