When sentinel events and near misses occur, the risk manager investigating the event often hears these types of statements from the people involved: “I didn’t mean to…,” “I thought you were…,” or often, “If only I could do it all over again…”

Surgical procedures account for a major share of a typical hospital’s overall financial performance. It is estimated that surgical services and associated care often generate around 60% of a hospital’s total revenues and some 30% to 40% of a hospital’s total expenses. Yet even as clinical information systems evolve forward rapidly in many areas of hospital operations, the vast majority of hospital organizations still have not yet fully automated their surgery processes.

In the United States, vaccine-preventable diseases cost in excess of $10 billion annually. Pneumococcal disease and influenza combined were the 8th leading cause of death in 2004 (Kung, et al., 2008).

Unknown to most Americans, the United States provides universal health coverage to its more than 305 million citizens and legal residents.

For as long as healthcare professionals have worked to improve patient safety, they have debated which criteria are appropriate for evaluating improvement initiatives and what evidence is required before programs are widely implemented.

Increasingly, healthcare consumers engage with clinicians and administrators in discussions about improving the safety and quality of healthcare.

Jackson Memorial Hospital is a 1,600-bed tertiary care facility in Miami, Florida, and serves as the primary teaching hospital for the University of Miami — Miller School of Medicine.

Healthcare consumers are increasingly aware of medical error and publicly reported quality measures.

With the increased focus on transparency in healthcare, it is now more than ever in a hospital’s best interest to have a robust peer review program that aligns with national patient safety efforts.

Communication in the perioperative environment is critical for patient safety and effective teamwork. Team members need to know the name of the patient, scheduled procedure, patient precautions and allergies, along with names of team members working together for a given case. Over the past several years, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) developed an intra-operative dashboard in collaboration with LiveData (Cambridge, Massachusetts) to aid in the Timeout/Universal Protocol process as well as provide these critical communication elements (Figure 1).