A recent review (Ann Intern Med 2013; 158: 365-8) notes that “over the past 12 years, since the publication of the Institute of Medicine’s report, ‘To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, ‘ improving patient safety has been the focus of considerable public and professional interest.”  The following is a summary of this report (Epocrates docalert summary):

Patient-safety experts in North America and the U.K. systematically reviewed the growing evidence base for 158 patient-safety topics, including 41 strategies designated as most important to practitioners and patients. All reviews are published in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) evidence report entitled “Making Health Care Safer II: An Updated Critical Analysis of the Evidence for Patient Safety Practices” to update the original 2001 publication. After carefully analyzing each patient-safety problem and its related safety strategy, the authors strongly recommend immediate adoption of the following 10 strategies:

• Preoperative and anesthesia checklists to prevent operative and postoperative events
• Bundles (with checklists) to prevent central line–associated bloodstream infections
• Interventions to reduce urinary catheter use
• Bundles to prevent ventilator-associated pneumonia
• Hand hygiene
• Do-not-use list for hazardous abbreviations
• Multicomponent interventions to prevent pressure ulcers
• Barrier precautions to prevent healthcare-associated infections
• Real-time ultrasonography for central line placement
• Interventions to improve prophylaxis for venous thromboembolism

The authors also provide a list of 12 “encouraged” (rather than “strongly encouraged”) patient-safety practices, these are listed in Table 2 of the paper.