AAMC Says Patient Safety Is A Top Priority For U.S. Medical Schools And Teaching Hospitals

Main Category: Medical Students / Training
Article Date: 11 Mar 2010 - 5:00 PDT

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AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, M.D., issued the following statement today on the Lucian Leape Institute's new report, Unmet Needs: Teaching Physicians to Provide Safe Patient Care:

"The AAMC and its member institutions were pleased to participate in the roundtable discussions that produced this new report on medical education and patient safety-a top priority for the nation's medical schools and teaching hospitals for the last decade.

In 2001, the AAMC issued a report with recommendations on what medical students need to know about quality improvement and patient safety. Over the last several years, many improvements in instruction and training in this area have occurred in all phases of medical education. As the Leape report points out, a substantial number of U.S. medical schools currently teach some aspect of patient safety, or are in the process of adopting and pursuing many of the recommendations. These institutions are engaged in a variety of curriculum activities, such as offering combined degree programs and course tracks in health care quality and patient safety, establishing centers and institutes for quality and safety, and offering programs in error-reduction training.

This change is not only taking place one institution at a time, it is also advancing in a more comprehensive fashion through the Integrating Quality Initiative, launched by the AAMC in 2008. This initiative helps medical schools and teaching hospitals enhance their quality improvement and patient safety efforts across the continuum of medical education by identifying and making available key resources, meeting with clinical and education leaders, and connecting academic medical centers as they work to integrate quality and safety strategies.

While U.S. medical schools and teaching hospitals have made great strides in reshaping education and training to better understand and teach patient safety, we agree that more can be done. Moving forward, we will encourage our member institutions to read and discuss this important report, and use it to inform their ongoing efforts in this critical area of health care. Medical education must always be a dynamic, evolving process-because better doctors mean better care."

For more information on medical education and patient safety, go to: Contemporary Issues in Medicine: Quality of Care , a 2001 AAMC report. Academic Medicine, December 2009, a special issue on quality and safety in medicine.

Source
Association of American Medical Colleges

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