A constant criticism of healthcare in America has been the number of medical errors and the poor-quality outcomes, especially given the amount of money spent.

This issue's cover story, “It's one step toward quality,” set out to explain the details (and hurdles) of a new patient-safety law. “The theory behind the new Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act is simple: Create an incentive for healthcare providers to report medical errors to a centralized database where researchers will analyze the information and report data to the providers that will use it to improve patient safety.”