Report to the President: A Transformational effort on patient safety (September 2023)

Summary

The USA President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology have released their report to the US President, Joe Biden, on patient safety. The report contains recommendations aimed at dramatically improving patient safety in Amercia.

Content

Recommendation 1: Establish and maintain Federal leadership for the improvement of Patient Safety as a national priority.

• 1A - Appoint a Patient Safety Coordinator reporting to the President on efforts to transform Patient Safety among all relevant Government Agencies.
• 1B - Establish a multidisciplinary National Patient Safety Team (NPST) and ensure inclusion of persons from populations most affected.

Recommendation 2: Ensure that patients receive evidence-based practices for preventing harm and addressing risks.

• 2A - Identify and address high-priority harms and promote patient safety though incentivizing the adoption of evidence-based solutions and requiring annual public reporting immediately and quarterly public reporting within 5 years.
• 2B - Create a learning ecosystem and shared accountability system to ensure that evidence-based practices are implemented and goals for reduced harms and risks of harm for every American are realized.
• 2C - Advance interoperability of healthcare data and assure access to the tracking of harms and use of evidence-based solutions.
• 2D - Improve safety for all healthcare workers and their patients through supporting a just culture of patient and clinician safety in healthcare systems.

Recommendation 3: Partner with patients and reduce disparities in medical errors and adverse outcomes.

• 3A - Implement a “whole of society approach” in the transformational effort on patient safety.
• 3B - Improve data and transparency to reduce disparities.

Recommendation 4: Accelerate research and deployment of practices, technologies, and exemplar systems of safe care.

• 4A - Develop a national patient safety research agenda.
• 4B - Harness revolutionary advances in information technologies.
• 4C - Develop federal healthcare delivery systems’ capacities and showcase results as exemplars for safer healthcare.