Rep. Barragán Reintroduces National Patient Safety Board Act to Prevent Medical Errors and Save Lives

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 20, 2026

Contact: [email protected]

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Last week, Congresswoman Nanette Barragán (CA-44) reintroduced the National Patient Safety Board Act, legislation to establish a National Patient Safety Board (NPSB) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to identify widespread causes of patient harm and develop solutions to prevent medical errors and improve patient safety.

An estimated one in four patients in the United States experiences some form of harm or adverse event in a health care setting. Preventable medical errors are estimated to contribute to approximately 250,000 deaths annually. These figures underscore the urgent need for a coordinated, nationwide approach to identifying risks and preventing avoidable harm before it occurs.

"Our health care system must do more to protect patients and prevent medical errors that can have devastating, lifelong consequences," said Rep. Barragán. "The National Patient Safety Board Act would bring experts, health care providers, government agencies, and private partners together to identify risks, develop effective solutions, and build safer health care systems for patients across the country."

Modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST), the NPSB would take a nonpunitive, collaborative approach to patient safety.

The National Patient Safety Board would:

• Identify and anticipate patient harm: Help health care organizations adopt data surveillance technologies, including automated systems and artificial intelligence, to detect warning signs and emerging risks while reducing the burden of manual data collection on frontline health care workers.
• Investigate widespread safety risks: Prioritize major sources of harm and conduct multidisciplinary studies to understand their underlying causes and identify opportunities for prevention.
• Recommend solutions that save lives: Develop evidence-based recommendations and advance the use of technologies and automated safeguards that can help prevent medical errors and keep patients safe.

"We are very excited to see the National Patient Safety Board Act re-introduced in the 119th Congress, and we thank Representative Nanette Barragan for her continued leadership as the sponsor of this visionary legislation," said Martin Hatlie, Director of Policy and Advocacy for Patients for Patient Safety US. "Establishment of this non-regulatory, investigation body will fill an important gap in our nation's learning and improvement engine, by creating a place where errors or systemic risks are studied to proactively prevent future harm. Enactment of Rep. Barragan's bill would be extremely meaningful to the millions of people in the United States who annually experience the tragedy of a missed or delayed diagnosis, serious injury as a patient, or needless loss of a loved one, and hope that what happened to us can help others avoid a similar fate."

"Employers believe that improving patient safety is an imperative" said James Gelfand, President and CEO, The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC). "Employees and their families deserve a health care system they can trust to deliver safe, high-quality care-not one that adds to their health challenges or puts them at risk. It's time to build a system that puts patients first and makes safety a shared responsibility."

"We thank Representative Barragán for her continued leadership in advancing patient safety. There remains a critical need for a National Patient Safety Board that can identify emerging risks, bring together expertise from across the country, and drive consensus around solutions to prevent patient harm," said Robert Ferguson, MPH, chief policy officer at the Jewish Healthcare Foundation and co-chair of the National Patient Safety Board Advocacy Coalition. "Through the recent work of the Coalition for Advancing Safer Healthcare (CASH), we have seen firsthand what is possible when multidisciplinary teams of national experts work together to develop practical solutions. That same collaborative, systems-based approach is essential to making health care safer for everyone."

Rep. Yvette Clarke (NY-09) is an original cosponsor.

Over 90 stakeholder organizations support this legislation, including AARP Public Policy Institute, American Patient Rights Association, American Society of Anesthesiologists, American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), Children's Hospitals' Solutions for Patient Safety, Emergency Care Research Institute (ECRI), The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), Families USA, Jewish Healthcare Foundation, Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, MedStar Health, National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ), National Quality Forum, Patient Safety Movement Foundation, and Patients for Patient Safety US.

The full text of the bill can be found HERE.

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