This year, ECRI and the Institute for Safe Medication Practices PSO celebrates our 15th anniversary as an AHRQ-listed Patient Safety Organization. Over this decade and a half, we have worked tirelessly to build and maintain the trust and reputation that confirms ECRI and ISMP’s deep roots in safety . In our 15 years as a PSO, we have collected close to 6.5 million safety events, including over 4.4 million adverse events (events that reached the patient and caused a degree of harm), 880,000 near misses (an adverse event was averted), and 1.2 million reports of unsafe conditions (events that could have led to patient harm). Behind those numbers are the stories of people: moms and dads, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors, who have been unintentionally harmed in our health systems. However, there are also stories of brave healthcare team members who recognized the risk for harm and had the courage to speak up for safety, intervene, and catch that near miss before the patient was harmed. With our immense database of safety events comes a great responsibility to learn from these stories and understand the failures in our healthcare systems that lead to harm. The learning and action that result from these events is how we will demonstrate our constancy of purpose for improving patient safety.
