Patrice L. Spath is a partner in Brown-Spath & Associates, a health care publishing and training company based in Forest Grove, Oregon. During the past twenty years, she has presented more than 350 educational programs on quality improvement, case management, medical error reduction, and outcomes management topics. A prolific writer, she has authored or edited more than 150 journal articles. Her book, Error Reduction in Health Care: A Systems Approach to Improving Patient Safety (Jossey-Bass, 2000) won wide acclaim and was a Doody's 250 Best Books of the Year Selection.