Patient safety : delivering cost-contained, high quality, person-centered, and safe healthcare

Abstract

World Health Organization defines patient safety as the absence of preventable harm and the prevention of errors/adverse events in healthcare (1). Despite stakeholders’ unanimous consideration that patient safety is a vital principle of healthcare delivery, it remains a concern across health systems worldwide. Across the continuum of healthcare, every process is potentially subjected to adverse events, which may originate from faults/errors in clinical and operational practices, products, procedures, or systems. This Research Topic reflects the complexity facing patient safety. It also reflects on the challenges involved in delivering cost-contained, high quality, person-centered, ethically sound, and safe healthcare. The contributions project the complexity and multidimensionality of patient safety by highlighting its facets. These include healthcare managers’ and leaders’ role in prioritizing safety climate for better patient outcomes, and the importance of innovation and new technologies in medicine to drive the patient safety agenda, which in turn leads to the debate of economic efficiency by containing costs through errorminimization and waste reduction. The topic discusses the use of complementary and alternative therapies, as well as over-the-counter drugs—which a closer look reveals that these day-to-day practices cannot be ignored. Patient safety also depends on smart decision-making processes and ethical provider-patient relationships. The articles can be grouped into: (i) the role of leadership in ensuring safety climate and clinical performance; (ii) economic efficiency, innovation, and new technologies; (iii) complementary and alternative medicine; (iv) decision-making; and (v) ethics. Teuma Custo et al. analyze themediating role ofmanagerial safety practices and priority of safety in the relationship between safety climate and safety performance in intensive care. Their results highlight the suitability of safety procedures, as well as the saliency of the clarity and unambiguity of clinical/managerial information flow. The leader’s role is that of being visibly supportive (2) as a safety referent and change agent by prioritizing safety. Safety leaders need to emerge so as to ensure healthcare organizations’ ongoing commitment to patient safety.