Patient Safety in 2023: Developing a New Science in a Postpandemic World

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed a marked increase in markers of patient harm in hospital settings as demonstrated in many of the quality measures. In addition, several recent studies continue to demonstrate that approximately one in four hospitalized patients experience harm, similar to the findings from 20 years ago in the To Err Is Human report. 1 Institute of Medicine (US) Committee onKohn L.T. Corrigan J.M. Donaldson M.S. Quality of Health Care in America. To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System. National Academies Press US, Washington, DC2000 Google Scholar Patient safety advocates have been sounding the alarm based upon these observations, but there is cause for optimism. First, the deterioration during the public health emergency (PHE) seems to be reversing as we come out of the PHE. However, our approach to safety through the development of strong teams has been distrupted by the health care worker shortage. So, we need to recommit to known strategies and develop new science and adapt strategies from other disciplines.