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Finding the Balance for Patient Safety and Quality

Simon C. Mathews; Peter J. Pronovost, MD, PhD

JAMA. 2008;300(24):2913-2915.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

The publication of To Err Is Human was the vanguard to improve patient safety.¹ Upon nearing the report's 10-year anniversary, little appears to have changed with significant barriers encountered when attempting to track progress.²

A long overdue and central thrust to improve patient safety and quality is standardizing the delivery of health care. In this Commentary, standards refer to explicit criteria when using specific preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic interventions and when delivering health services. Standards take many forms, from protocols developed by a health system, insurer, or professional society to safety practices developed by national organizations.

Standardized care requires physicians to engage in informed decision making, in which their decisions are based on rules intended to optimize patients' clinical or economic outcomes.³ Physicians are often the purveyors of information to help patients make informed decisions about their care. However, if the benefit . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Autonomous vs Informed Decision Making

Author Affiliations: Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (Mr Mathews); and Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; and Department of Health Policy Management, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health (Dr Pronovost), Baltimore, Maryland.

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