In the USA it is estimated that at least 44,000, and perhaps as many as 98,000 people die in hospitals each year as a result of medical errors.
In the USA it is estimated that at least 44,000, and perhaps as many as 98,000 people die in hospitals each year as a result of medical errors.
Even using the lower estimate these deaths exceed those attributed to breast cancer, AIDS and motor vehicle accidents. As many as half of these are judged to be avoidable. Reducing this disturbing toll of human lives requires a rethink of the approach towards medical safety.
A new study, undertaken by research teams at the University of Cambridge’s Engineering Design Centre (EDC), the Robens Centre for Health Ergonomics at the University of Surrey, and the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre at the Royal College of Art, has led to the publication of a report pointing the way to improving patient safety and contributing significantly to improving the quality of care for NHS patients. The study identified how the effective use of design could help to reduce medical accidents.
The first part of this report sets out the safety challenge that needs to be addressed and outlines a new design-led approach to reducing the incidence of error and accidents across the NHS. As a result of the work, a series of research-based recommendations and actions have been submitted to the Department of Health to help put this approach into practice.
Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, in his Foreword to the report comments:
"Properly addressed, improvements in patient safety will contribute significantly to improving the quality of care for NHS patients. Reduction in errors will also free up resources at present used to cope with the consequences of those errors. Implementing the thinking set out in this report could go a long way to help achieve that goal. If the NHS can embrace the broad systems approach set out in the following pages, we would undoubtedly save lives."
"Design for patient safety - a system-wide design-led approach to tackling patient safety in the NHS" was jointly commissioned by the Department of Health and the Design Council and is available from the Design Council or Department of Health.
The report is a response to the Government’s drive to learn from medical accidents, which led to a strategy for reporting, analysing and drawing lessons from accidents. The National Patient Safety Agency was formed in 2001 to put the strategy into action.
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