Improving Health Care Safety And Quality

The author discusses the issue of patient safety and healthcare quality in response to recent hospital scandals. They draw on their experience analyzing healthcare systems in multiple countries to examine the effectiveness of increased regulation in improving patient safety. The book presents a new approach to understanding healthcare systems in Europe, North America, and Australia and identifies successful regulatory strategies and mechanisms for ensuring safer patient care. It also proposes a conceptual framework for responsive regulation and will be useful for government officials, healthcare professionals, and medico-legal scholars.

Responding to the public concern caused by recent hospital scandals and accounts of unintended harm to patients, this author draws on her experience of analysing the health care systems of over a dozen countries and examines whether greater regulation has increased patient safety and health care quality. The book adopts a new approach to mapping developments in health care systems in Europe, North America and Australia and pieces together evidence of which regulatory strategies and mechanisms work well to ensure safer patient care. It identifies the regulatory bodies, the regulatory principles and the implementation strategies adopted to improve governance in health care systems and suggests a conceptual framework for responsive regulation. The book will be of interest to government actors, health care professionals and medico-legal scholars.