Abstract

Despite our best efforts to reform the healthcare system, significant challenges remain. To some extent, our progress is being hampered because of our hesitation to learn from past mistakes. In his article "Systematically Identified Failure Is the Route to a Successful Health System", Zwarenstein (2015) argues that we must right this wrong and begin to systematically identify, acknowledge and learn from failure if we want to make true progress. This commentary outlines some key steps that must be taken to help us move past failure and apply lessons to future healthcare reforms. To achieve this end state we propose adopting a disciplined approach that includes clearly defining policy goals, stratifying failures into categories to help facilitate learning and encouraging leaders to acknowledge and learn from failure.