International trends in patient safety governance

This chapter outlines the way in which a range of strategies, including accreditation, pay for performance, data as information, education, leadership, champions and teams, and legal drivers act together under the umbrella of patient safety governance to reduce errors and improve safety in, and create public value from, health care. Growing international concerns about patient safety in recent decades have led to the development and implementation of a basket of improvement strategies, activities and initiatives. These act as economic, legal, educational, organisational, ethical or professional drivers for change. Patient safety is governed by a variety of initiatives, but different health systems seem to favour some measures over others, either by explicit choice or because of accidents of history. Some of the problems in identifying international trends in this area of endeavour are that the literature is highly fragmented (e.g. in reports, policy documents, medical journals and health services publications) and reform is fast paced and uneven.