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Other non-governmental organizations have followed the lead of the AHRQ, adopting and establishing guidelines and procedures for furthering patient safety and reporting medical errors, among them; The Joint Commission on Accreditation, The National Quality Forum, The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American College of Physicians, the National Patient Safety Foundation, the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education, the American Board of medical specialties and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

While the authors note the progress that has been made they point out some of the issues that are keeping the pace of improvement moving slowly, such as the complexity of the medical industry, the commitment to professional autonomy in medicine, fear of malpractice for admitting error, a lack of leadership at the hospital and health plan level and a paucity of definable measures to demonstrate that improvement is being achieved.

Some of the notable highlights of clinical effectiveness of safe practices that have been implemented in individual hospitals since the IOM report: