Ever since publication of the Institute of Medicine’s To Err Is Human (1999), concerns about patient safety have taken a prominent place in debates about American healthcare.

Most of us think we know who Hippocrates was. Certainly no one disagrees with “not doing harm.” We want to do what we think is best for the patient, based on good science and consistent with the art.

Unfortunately, what I have learned about designing systems for safety didn’t protect this magazine from some nasty errors in the last issue.

OSF St. Joseph Medical Center began its journey to patient safety by focusing on reduction of adverse drug events (ADE). For help in this venture, the medical center became involved with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s (IHI) ADE Reduction Collaborative.

Enactment of the long-awaited Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act raises a question we hate to have to ask: Why were patients left out?

Following the publication of the Institute of Medicine Report, To Err Is Human, Building a Safer Health System (IOM), public awareness of the problem of medical errors resulted in several new patient safety initiatives by the federal government.

Jackson Memorial Hospital (JMH) in Miami, Florida, is an accredited, non-profit, tertiary care hospital and the major teaching facility for the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine.

We are soon approaching the sixth anniversary of the landmark Institute of Medicine report, To Err Is Human, and I am very pleased to report that the healthcare system is making progress toward ensuring that it provides the safest, highest quality healthcare possible.

This resource directory provides a listing of companies that offer barcoding and/or RFID technologies to healthcare clients.

Investment in interoperability, including the National Health Information Network (NHIN) and locally based Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIOs) is ramping up rapidly.