Patient safety

Patient safety is a specialized field focused on enhancing healthcare quality through the systematic prevention, reduction, reporting, and analysis of medical errors and preventable harm that can lead to negative patient outcomes. Although healthcare risks have long existed, patient safety only gained formal recognition in the 1990s following reports of alarming rates of medical error-related injuries in many countries. The urgency of the issue was underscored when the World Health Organization (WHO) identified that 1 in 10 patients globally experience harm due to healthcare errors, declaring patient safety an "endemic concern" in modern medicine.

Today, patient safety is a distinct healthcare discipline, supported by an ever evolving scientific framework. It is underpinned by a robust transdisciplinary body of theoretical and empirical research, with emerging technologies, such as mobile health applications, playing a pivotal role in its advancement.

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