“Do No Harm” - ORReady Initiative Aims to Improve Safety and Outcome for 6 Million Patients

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published a landmark report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System.1 The IOM reported that up to 98,000 Americans die each year due to medical error and that more people were dying from medical errors than from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS. The report defined safety as “freedom from accidental injury” and brought patient safety issues into the spotlight. While some complications are unavoidable, others are preventable errors. All possible measures should be taken to mitigate these errors and encourage safety in the operating room and all aspects of medical care. The IOM report was a “call to action to make health care safer for patients.”