Patient Safety and Quality

Patient safety is the cornerstone of high-quality health care and is focused on how hospitals and other health care organizations protect their patients from errors, injuries, accidents, and infection. Nurses are in a key position to improve the quality of health care through patient safety interventions and strategies, and they are critical to the surveillance and coordination of quality of care that reduces adverse health outcomes. Columbia University School of Nursing’s research portfolio places it at the forefront of patient safety and quality initiatives targeting multiple health care settings such as hospitals, ambulatory care units, long-term care facilities, nursing homes, and home health care. Much of our work focuses on producing evidence to make health care safer, of higher quality, and more accessible, equitable, and affordable, which aligns with the mission of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, a major funder of Columbia Nursing’s research endeavors.