Access is Patient Safety: Why It Matters for Rural and Remote Care in British Columbia
- 13 hours ago
- 2 min read
A recent viewpoint in JAMA reframes a fundamental truth: patient safety does not begin at the bedside—it begins with access.
Too often, healthcare systems define safety narrowly—focusing on clinical errors, complications, or diagnostic failures. Yet for many patients, especially those in rural and remote communities, the greatest risk occurs long before they ever meet a clinician. Delays in referral, fragmented coordination, administrative barriers, and limited system capacity create what the authors describe as “access failures”—events that introduce real and measurable harm but are rarely recognized as patient safety issues.
This framing is particularly important in British Columbia. Geography, workforce limitations, and system fragmentation mean that access to higher levels of care is not guaranteed. For critically ill and injured patients, time is not just important—it is determinative. Delays in accessing definitive care are directly linked to worse outcomes, increased distress, and system inefficiencies.
This is where Med Response BC (MRBC) and prehospital and retrieval medicine (PHRM) play a critical role.
PHRM fundamentally redefines access. Rather than waiting for patients to reach care, it brings advanced, interprofessional critical care to the patient—wherever they are. It bridges gaps between rural facilities and tertiary centres, reduces delays in decision-making, and ensures timely transfer to definitive care when needed. In doing so, it transforms access from a passive process into an active component of patient safety.
The implication is clear: if access is the first link in the chain of survival, then strengthening access is one of the most powerful patient safety interventions available.
For MRBC, this is not just a service model—it is a commitment to equity. Ensuring that rural and remote patients have timely access to high-quality care is not optional. It is foundational to a safe, high-performing health system.
Because patient safety begins before the patient arrives.
