Patient safety taxonomy: Are we all talking the same language?

Currently witnessing exponential growth in the number of publications, reports and research projects to increase knowledge about patient safety, already many countries are addressing the problem and defining their strategies.Despite the remarkable efforts made, it remains one of the main problems the absence of a common taxonomy for Patient Safety, which serves to harmonize the concepts, principles, standards and terms used to work on the subject and thus to strengthen the discipline.The present article gives an overview of this problem goes on to define a set of terms initially considered very important in the field of Patient Safety. Are also provided a series of examples which serve to better understanding by healthcare workers.