CAPSAC

CAPSAC is a group of more than 60 of the state’s leading public and private health care stakeholders. We came together to improve patient safety and increase reporting of near misses and medical errors through promoting the principles of a fair and just culture across the continuum of health care in California. In a fair and just culture, providers and patients feel safe and supported when reporting medical errors and near misses, or simply voicing concerns about patient safety.

Who are the members of CAPSAC?

Representatives from a diverse group of health care industry stakeholders guide the coalition. List of members….

Our Approach

Many institutions assume medical errors are caused by negligent individuals and organizations, and, as such, can and should be prevented by assigning blame and punishment. This creates a culture in which health care providers are afraid to report errors and near misses. In contrast, CAPSAC members believe that a strictly punitive approach to the handling of medical errors can actually make things more unsafe by creating an incentive to not report possible safety concerns and errors. The CAPSAC approach to protecting the public from medical errors is to focus on making systems better and not on punishing individuals.

What is CAPSAC’s goal?

CAPSAC wants to change the current culture of blame and punishment to one of trust and accountability by promoting the principles of a “fair and just culture” medical event reporting system. A “fair and just culture” in health care organizations is characterized by everyone throughout the organization being aware that medical errors are inevitable, but by reporting all errors and unintended events – even when the events may not cause patient injury – they can make the system safer.