National Organizations Focused
on Reducing Medical Error

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• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. AHRQ invests in research on the Nation's health delivery system to understand "how" to make health care safer and improve quality. AHRQ creates materials to teach and train health care systems and professionals to put the results of research into practice. AHRQ generates measures and data used by providers and policymakers.

• The Coalition to Improve Diagnosis (CID)The Coalition to Improve Diagnosis, made up of many of the most prestigious organizations in the medical and patient community, has been established to bring awareness, attention, and action to the problem of diagnostic error.

• Consumers Advancing Patient Safety (CAPS) is a consumer-led nonprofit organization formed to be a collective voice for individuals, families and healers who wish to prevent harm in healthcare encounters through partnership and collaboration. CAPS is committed to exploring and contributing the wisdom and experience that consumers can offer to patient safety research, education of both consumers and providers, reporting of bad outcomes and near misses, development and implementation of solutions that can prevent harm, and policy making that will help create healthcare systems that are safe, compassionate and just.

• Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is a recognized innovator, convener, and generous leader, a trustworthy partner, and the first place to turn for expertise, help, and encouragement for anyone, anywhere who wants to profoundly change health and health care for the better.

• National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF is now part of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement) The National Patient Safety Foundation’s vision is to create a world where patients and those who care for them are free from harm. NPSF partners with patients and families, the health care community, and key stakeholders to advance patient safety and health care workforce safety and disseminate strategies to prevent harm. Committed to a collaborative approach in all that it does, the Foundation offers a portfolio of programs targeted to diverse stakeholders across the health care industry.

• Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) helps people make informed healthcare decisions, and improves healthcare delivery and outcomes, by producing and promoting high-integrity, evidence-based information that comes from research guided by patients, caregivers, and the broader healthcare community. We seek to fund useful research likely to change practice and improve patient outcomes. We focus on sharing those results with the public. And we work to influence research funded by others to become more useful to patients and other healthcare decision makers.

• The Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) has a vision of a world where no patients are harmed by Diagnostic Error. To accomplish this, SIDM catalyzes and leads change to improve diagnosis and eliminate harm, in partnership with patients, their families, the healthcare community, and every interested stakeholder. SIDM focuses on making accurate and timely diagnosis a strategic priority for all healthcare organizations and participants. They do so via innovative work in four key areas: Research, Education, Practice, and Patient Engagement