Crossing the Quality Chasm

Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century

The committee on the Quality of Health Care in America released this report on March 1, 2001. It followed the 1999 report, To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System, which brought to light the human toll and financial cost of medical error. These two documents were instrumental in raising patient safety to a major concern in health care and among policymakers.

This report urgently calls for change to the health care system processes to improve the level of quality. It analyzes this dilemma, and explores potential ways in which change could be implemented in the health care system.