Making hospital care safer and better: the structure-process connection leading to adverse events.

The 2004 Canadian Adverse Events (AE) Study which focused on estimating the incidence of AEs in hospital settings found an annual AE rate of 7.5% of all hospital admissions in Canada (Baker et al. 2004). Although study findings in terms of patient outcomes are essential for hospitals to review their own practices, a thorough understanding of the contributing factors leading to adverse events will be an important next step for hospitals to …