SafestHospital.org is a privately-owned resource developed to to help increase safety in the design, construction and operation of hsospitals.  Three of the nation's leading hospital systems on Thursday announced a plan to combat the growing epidemic of medical errors in hospitals by developing the first comprehensive approach to patient safety. The Safest Hospital Alliance, comprised of Wellmont Health System, Adventist Health System and Novant Health, will tackle an issue that the Institute of Medicine rates as the eighth-leading cause of death in the United States, higher than motor-vehicle crashes, breast cancer or AIDS. This site examines the "World's Safest Hospital" Initiative, as well as how to increase patient safety in all aspects of hospital design, construction and operation.

98,000 Deaths Annually

An estimated 98,000 hospital deaths occur annually from medical errors.  These mistakes carry with them approximately $37.6 billion in additional charges, including $17 billion associated with preventable errors. While there have been many piecemeal approaches to patient safety, a total solution has remained elusive, in part due to the lack of standardized benchmarks for comparing the performance of healthcare professionals. USP 797 is a far-reaching regulation that governs a wide range of pharmacy policies and procedures. It is designed both to cut down on infections transmitted to patients through pharmaceutical products and to better protect staff working in pharmacies in the course of their exposure to pharmaceuticals.