Patient safety is the pursuit of the reduction and mitigation of unsafe acts within the healthcare system, as well as the use of best practices shown to lead to optimal patient outcomes. A patient safety incident is an event or circumstance that could have resulted, or did result, in unnecessary harm to a patient.
There are three types of patient safety incidents:
- Harmful incident: a patient safety incident that resulted in harm to the patient (replaces "preventable adverse event")
- Near miss: a patient safety incident that did not reach the patient and therefore no harm resulted
- No-harm incident: a patient safety incident that reached the patient but no discernible harm resulted
Care should be safe for every patient. The topics in this section include products developed to respond to or reduce healthcare harm, including incident management resources and disclosure guidelines.
