How is AHRQ involved in improving patient safety?
Dr. Clancy: AHRQ is involved in improving patient safety in several ways. As a research organization we fund a variety of research initiatives and demonstrations involving professionals, hospitals and other health care settings trying to understand why errors occur and what can be done to reduce those errors. Some of this research also addresses and evaluates strategies to make health care safer in itself. For example, the use of barcoding to make sure that the right patient gets the right medication. In addition to that, because its important that health professionals and health care organizations use this information every day. A second part and very important part of our work is working in partnership with a variety of organizations so that projects and findings that are successful can be broadly translated. Debra: Okay, I’m going to give you some general phrases about patient safety and if you would Id like you to give me a one- or two-sentence explanation. For example, if I say Pa
