Patient Safety Perspectives: Healthcare Policy, Healthcare Quality, Healthcare Operations, Risk Management and Healthcare Strategic Standpoints

Medical errors have been primarily classified into four types those that pose a drawback to patient safety. The Joint Commission, an independent accreditation body has stipulated standards for incorporating patient safety in hospitals and healthcare institutions. These accreditation standards along with the Institute of Medicine's Six Patient Care Aims and the Institute of Healthcare Improvement's Triple Aim models form existing policies to propagate patient safety standards at the hospital level. The six aims of optimal patient care are safe, efficient, effective, patient centered, timely and equitable and parameters of the Triple Aim model are improving patient experience of care with regard to healthcare quality, decreasing per capita cost of care with regard to healthcare costs and improving overall health of the population in regard to disease prevention and wellness. At the provider's level, patient safety could also be practiced leveraging ethical principles of Beauchamp and Childress namely Truthfulness, Confidentiality, Autonomy, Informed Consent, Beneficence, Non-maleficence and Justice. Patient safety practices in emergency and non-emergency cases have implications that command a threefold attention from providers, administration and leadership. Overall, providers, administration and leadership who execute clinical and non-clinical decisions help facilitate patient safety in times of crises are described in this chapter.