Patient Safety

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Introduction
The safety of patients is a critical component in ensuring timely recovery. Thus, patient safety is the process by which medical practitioners seek to reduce or otherwise eliminate medical errors that adversely affect the safety of a patient (Corrigan, 2012). This involves healthcare practitioners emphasizing on the need to have proper reporting and analysis procedures when recording an event (Gogan, Baxter, Boss, & Chircu, 2013). The mechanisms used by America compares with those used in other developed countries such as Canada, Spain, United Kingdom and Australia. The paper discusses the safety of American healthcare system in comparison with United Kingdom.
Patient Safety
The U.S. Healthcare System
The adoption of patient safety as a critical healthcare discipline has seen patients receiving safe and reliable medical care. In the U.S., this discipline was introduced in the 1990s when the number of patient dying out of medically related error was increasing at an alarming rate (Jeffers, Searcey, Boyle, Herring, Lester, Goetz-Smith et al., 2013). Consequently, the government initiated a program to ensure healthcare professionals and equipment provides good care to patients. This program included heightening public knowledge on public safety, use of technology, and evidence-based medication (Sheps & Cardiff, 2011).
According to Vincent (2011), technological improvement in health centers reduces adverse healthcare events, lowers medical errors and improves care quality. The government has implemented Electronic health record (EHR) as part of health information technology to reduce the time taken in attending to patients. HER system has applications in drug prescription, emergency, laboratory tests, and general medicat...

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...u, A. M. (2013). Handoff processes, information quality and patient safety. Business Process Management Journal, 19(1), 70-94. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14637151311294877
Jeffers, S., Searcey, P., Boyle, K., Herring, C., Lester, K., Goetz-Smith, H., & Nelson, P. (2013). Centralized video monitoring for patient safety: A Denver health lean journey. Nursing Economics, 31(6), 298-306. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1477880055?accountid=45049
Sheps, S. B., & Cardiff, K. (2011). Patient safety: A wake-up call. Clinical Governance, 16(2), 148-158. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14777271111124509
Sultz A. H. & Young, M. K. (2010). Health Care USA. BL: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.
Vincent C. (2011). Patient Safety. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Winter E. R. (2013). Unraveling U.S. Health Care: A Personal Guide. LH: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

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