Can patient safety be measured by surveys of patient experiences?

Background: A study was conducted to test whether patient reports of medical errors via surveys could produce sufficiently accurate information to be used as a measure of patient safety.

Methods: A survey mailed regularly by a large multispecialty medical group to recent patients to assess their satisfaction and error experiences was expanded to collect more details about the patient-perceived errors. Following an initial mailing to 3,109 patients and parents of child patients soon after they had office visits in June 2005, usable mailed or phone follow-up responses were obtained from 1,998 respondents (65.