Is patient safety synonymous with quality nursing care? Should it be? A brief discourse.

Over the course of the past several years, patient safety and the initiatives undertaken to assure it have become highly visible issues in health care delivery. Patient safety is now the focus of national regulatory agencies as well as local health care institutions. At both the national and local levels, significant resources are directed at achieving patient safety goals. As nurses strive to implement and comply with the regulatory directives regarding safe care, has the focus of nursing care shifted from quality nursing care, built on a foundation of caring, of recognizing and attending to a patient's individualized needs, to a base that equates "safe care" with "quality care?" Have safety and quality become synonymous? This shift may indeed be occurring; however, quality nursing care--no matter how safe it is--must include caring as a core value and highlight the integral human relationship between the nurse and the patient.