Ambulatory Patient Safety: The Time Is Now: Comment on “Patient Perceptions of Mistakes in Ambulatory Care”

In the Harvard Medical Practice Study published in 1991, the annual incidence of deaths from medical errors in the United States was estimated to be equivalent to a jumbo jet crashing every day.^1,2 National surveys have shown that across all care settings, 34% of Americans believe they or a family member have experienced a preventable medical error, with 21% reporting “serious health consequences.”³ But most experts agree that a decade after these statistics reached national headlines through the 1999 Institute of Medicine report To Err Is Human and 2 decades after the Harvard Medical Practice Study was published, progress to improve patient safety has been slow.^4,5