Patients' willingness and ability to participate actively in the reduction of clinical errors: a systematic literature review.
Interventions to engage patients in safety efforts have thus far yielded mixed results. This systematic review found 68 articles that either described interventions to engage patients in safety or examined patients' perspectives on being actively involved in their safety. The authors identified four potential barriers to patients' involvement in safety: illness severity, cognitive characteristics (including language barriers), poor physician–patient communication, and organizational factors (including safety culture). Another recent review established a framework for how organizations can stimulate patient engagement in safety efforts.