The release of the Institute of Medicine (IOM)’s To Err is Human report in 1999 was a seminal moment in the patient safety movement. This bibliometric analysis found that the report has been mentioned in over 20,000 scientific publications since 2000, but that the themes of recent research do not necessarily align with the initial focus of the IOM report. For example, research on incident reporting and systems approaches to improving safety are underrepresented relative to their emphasis in the IOM report.

In this narrative review, the authors contrast approaches to teamwork in healthcare with current concepts in safety science. The authors encourage moving past a ‘reductionist’ (reducible through information) approach to teamwork training and discuss the potential benefit from a more interdisciplinary approach towards teamwork and safety science research by integrating medical and social science disciplines, moving towards a ‘macro’ view of health care delivery, and evaluating how socioeconomic factors influence both healthcare systems and individual practitioners.

… of aviation safety principles , this commentary provides a framework to guide briefings about anesthesia inductions. …