The Center for Patient Safety at the End of Life

Seeking Reliability and Safety in the Care of Individuals Nearing the End of Life with Serious Illness

Sarah Myers, Joanne Lynn

ResearchPosted on rand.org 2002Published in: Topics in Health Information Management, v. 23, no. 2, Nov. 2002, p. 13-21

Although they can affect all Americans, lapses in patient safety disproportionately affect the oldest, sickest patients. Seriously ill patients are subjected to repeated mistakes, including nontreatment of pain and other symptoms; discontinuity within and among provider programs; location of care for provider convenience, rather than efficiency or family support; and a lack of advance planning. To address these shortcomings, the RAND Center to Improve Care of the Dying (now the Washington Home Center for Palliative Care Studies) generated the Center for Patient Safety at the End of Life, which is committed to making care safe and reliable for this population.

Topics

Document Details

  • Copyright: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins
  • Availability: Non-RAND
  • Year: 2002
  • Pages: 9
  • Document Number: EP-200211-16

This publication is part of the RAND external publication series. Many RAND studies are published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, as chapters in commercial books, or as documents published by other organizations.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.