The Power of Safety: State Reporting Provides Lessons in Reducing Harm, Improving Care 

Within the next 10 years, 1 in every 5 dollars spent in the United States will go toward healthcare costs. These rising costs, coupled with the prevalence of medical errors nation­wide, underscore a struggle behind consistent measurement, and reporting of patient safety events is an initiative that can save lives and dollars. While many states are making important strides to­ward establishing public reporting systems for medical er­rors, the need to establish broader adverse event reporting systems continues. These systems can facilitate substantive reporting, and the information derived then can be evalu­ated and acted upon to improve care and reduce errors.