ABSTRACT
Patient Safety Alerts™ Five years before Mrs. McClinton arrived at Virginia Mason, the historic 1999 IOM report To Err Is Human, was published. It detailed the epidemic of medical errors in the United States and made clear that the American medical culture-Virginia Mason included-re©exively resisted disclosing and discussing medical errors. Dr. Gary Kaplan and his Virginia Mason colleagues wanted to change that. To do so, they sought to probe the level of comfort providers within the medical center had for reporting and discussing safety issues. us, in 2002, they started measuring the “culture of safety” using a proven measurement tool developed by a provider insurance conglomerate (Physician Insurers Association of America (PIAA); Virginia Mason switched to an Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ) tool in 2005 and has used it ever since).
