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.

Patient Safety and Quality Healthcare (PSQH) had the opportunity recently to talk with Manuel Lowenhaupt, MD, about the effectiveness of computerized provider order entry (CPOE) as a safety tool and opportunities that the technology offers.

Deciding to adopt an electronic medical record (EMR) is one of the most important decisions made by any practice. The transition to an EMR from a paper system can be challenging because it changes the way everyone works.

Usually, summer is a time for folks in Washington, D.C., to flee town and enjoy cool weather outside the Capitol Beltway. This summer has been anything but usual.

Walter McClure, one of the nation’s most astute health policy analysts, is rightfully recognized as one of the principal architects of strategies to harness market forces as an instrument for healthcare system reform (Business Week, 1982; Iglehart, 1988).