Changing competencies in health care professions: Will your nurses be ready?

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System” brought the issues of medical error and patient safety to the forefront of national concern.1 In this report, the now popularized statistic that “at least 44,000 people, and perhaps as many as 98,000 people, die in hospitals each year as a result of medical errors that could have been prevented” stimulated health care providers and purchasers into action. Problems arising from decentralized and fragmented delivery systems, inadequate safety reporting methods, and the absence of a blameless culture of learning in health care all were cited as contributing factors to preventable medical errors with resultant patient harm.