Improving Health Care Safety and Quality

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.

Judith Healy is at the RegNet, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Australia.

Contents: Preface: why this book?; Introduction: why regulate?; How safe is health care?; Regulatory actors: who governs health care?; Regulating the health professions; Safety cultures and safety systems; Regulating staff: internal management; Regulating organizations: external reviews; Regulation by enforcement: laws, money and monitoring; Regulation by patients; Responsive regulation: trust and transparency; Index.