Engaging Patients as Safety Partners

A how-to book for creating patient-caregiver relationships that improve patient safety. The book aids health care professionals in understanding how patients and families can partner with practitioners to reduce medical errors and how practitioners can mitigate the effects of mistakes when they do occur. It helps health care professionals recognize and overcome barriers that inhibit consumer involvement in patient safety improvement. It also provides valuable advice on how to surmount legal concerns associated with patient/practitioner collaboration. The book is filled with advice, templates, and other solutions to problematic safety issues, such as overcoming the culture of individual accountability that can inhibit collaboration; introducing strategies and techniques for patients to safely navigate the health care system; breaking through barriers caused by low health literacy; overcoming legal, cultural, and regulatory issues that affect information sharing and disclosure, and mending an adversarial patient/caregiver relationship through patient-centered care and transparency.