Improving patient safety in radiology.

Abstract

Both horizontally oriented interventions (aimed at improving culture and environment in an effort to reduce the number of human errors potentially leading to patient harm) and vertically oriented (aimed at a specific area of errors) are needed to create a comprehensive safety program in radiology. Our objective is to describe horizontal interventions introduced to improve safety in radiology. Horizontal interventions--such as operational rounds with radiology leadership, safety coach programs, error prevention training, and a lessons-learned communication program--can successfully improve the safety culture and performance in radiology.