The pandemic's enduring, positive impact on patient safety

A few months before COVID-19 turned our country upside down, the health care industry celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Institute of Medicine's landmark report "To Err is Human." The report — which noted that medical errors cause between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths every year — increased awareness regarding the rate of preventable errors and commenced a nationwide push to prevent them.

In an article commemorating the anniversary, Dr. Mark Chassin, president and CEO of the Joint Commission, which accredits U.S. hospitals and sets rigorous safety standards, wrote, "It's been 20 years, and we haven't moved the quality and safety needle as much as we had hoped."

As an emergency medicine physician, I've seen firsthand the high rate of preventable medical errors. I agree with Chassin. I also can't help wondering whether the industry would have moved faster to make patient safety improvements had it known what would hit the U.S. in February 2020.

After more than 575,000 deaths in the U.S. alone due to COVID-19, I believe the answer is yes. We would have moved faster.

Despite the heroic efforts by hospitals and their staff members, the health care system was not fully prepared to meet the challenges posed by the pandemic. Key safety vulnerabilities included capacity problems, a lack of personal protective equipment and other critical supplies, and inadequate isolation protocols and infection prevention measures.

As vaccines become widely available across the country and optimism grows that the worst is behind us, I'm encouraged by signs that the industry is reflecting on lessons learned and hitting the accelerator on patient safety improvements.

One of the most exciting trends relates to a recent shift in how hospital leaders are prioritizing patient safety. A March 2021 survey of 100 hospital and health system leaders found that patient safety is now a higher strategic priority for health care executives than are other initiatives such as improving efficiency, reducing costs, increasing revenue and gaining market share.

Even better, hospital leaders aren't just saying safety is a higher priority — they are acting on it. Already, most have taken steps to create additional stockpiles of personal protective equipment and modify contingency plans to include patient overflow areas and new isolation paths to fortify against future pandemic-like situations, including mass casualty events.

Many hospitals, such as Children's Minnesota, are also using clinical surveillance technology to enhance safety and improve infection prevention practices. This technology continuously draws up-to-date patient information from transactional data sources, like the electronic health record, and shares actionable insights back to health care providers, all in real time. As a result, health care organizations are more quickly spotting, preventing, responding to and even predicting patient safety problems such as hospital-acquired infections and adverse drug events.

My hope is that the push to improve patient safety will only continue to grow. With 1,000 Americans dying each day in hospitals due to preventable errors, there's too much remaining that needs to be accomplished. We can't let the newfound momentum subside.