Critical incident reporting and learning

[Safety-II in daily clinical practice]

BACKGROUND

Providing patient safety is a central matter in health care requiring complex treatment processes containing many risks. In hospital care, adverse events and patient harm occur frequently. In this context, the safety sciences investigate causes and contributing factors of such events as well as improvement measures. With Safety-I and Safety-II, two complementary approaches come into play. While Safety-I aims to minimize adverse events, the Safety-II approach focuses on understanding the system as a whole whose normal operations can result in both desired and adverse events. With the implementation of the Critical Incident Report System (CIRS), the Safety-I approach (with a focus on errors and correction of negative consequences for patient safety) has become an integral part of the university hospital chosen for this study. The subject matter of this study is to determine if and how the Safety-II approach (focussing on normal operation and the understanding of positive effects for patient safety) is already in use and what measurements can support its integration in daily clinical practice.

METHOD

Through observation, the structures of daily feedback meetings (huddles) from six different hospital departments have been gathered to determine if they can be considered as potential starting points for the implementation of the Safety-II approach. The following expert interviews (n=7) discussed four potentials of the Safety-II approach using the Resilient Assessment Grid (RAG). Finally, a focus group discussed which measurements are central for the integration of the Safety-II approach in daily clinical practice.

RESULTS

The study shows that department teams partially follow the Safety-II approach. During team huddles, positive experiences are already exchanged. The expert interviews revealed that the RAG potentials respond, learn and anticipate have already been realized satisfactorily while the potential monitor fell behind. The focus groups regard the Safety-II approach more as a matter of corporate culture and less as a paradigm shift which is needed to be integrated into day-to-day business.

DISCUSSION

Successfully establishing the Safety-II approach requires a focus not just on unwanted occurrences. It is also necessary to focus on the often not directly apparent desired occurrences, which ensure patient safety, and to systematically reflect on them in order to contribute to the development of the organizational culture. Having a better understanding of how the system of daily clinical practice with all its subsystems works will make it possible to proactively counteract unwanted occurrences, for example through regular feedback sessions and debriefings, and to increase patient safety.

Enhancing patient safety by integrating ethical dimensions to Critical Incident Reporting Systems

BACKGROUND

Critical Incident Reporting Systems (CIRS) provide a well-proven method to identify clinical risks in hospitals. All professions can report critical incidents anonymously, low-threshold, and without sanctions. Reported cases are processed to preventive measures that improve patient and staff safety. Clinical ethics consultations offer support for ethical conflicts but are dependent on the interaction with staff and management to be effective. The aim of this study was to investigate the rationale of integrating an ethical focus into CIRS.

METHODS

A six-step approach combined the analysis of CIRS databases, potential cases, literature on clinical and organizational ethics, cases from ethics consultations, and experts' experience to construct a framework for CIRS cases with ethical relevance and map the categories with principles of biomedical ethics.

RESULTS

Four main categories of critical incidents with ethical relevance were derived: (1) patient-related communication; (2) consent, autonomy, and patient interest; (3) conflicting economic and medical interests; (4) staff communication and corporate culture. Each category was refined with different subcategories and mapped with case examples and exemplary related ethical principles to demonstrate ethical relevance.

CONCLUSION

The developed framework for CIRS cases with its ethical dimensions demonstrates the relevance of integrating ethics into the concept of risk-, quality-, and organizational management. It may also support clinical ethics consultations' presence and effectiveness. The proposed enhancement could contribute to hospitals' ethical infrastructure and may increase ethical behavior, patient safety, and employee satisfaction.

Using convolutional neural networks to identify patient safety incident reports by type and severity

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the feasibility of a convolutional neural network (CNN) with word embedding to identify the type and severity of patient safety incident reports.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A CNN with word embedding was applied to identify 10 incident types and 4 severity levels. Model training and validation used data sets (n_type = 2860, n_severity = 1160) collected from a statewide incident reporting system. Generalizability was evaluated using an independent hospital-level reporting system. CNN architectures were examined by varying layer size and hyperparameters. Performance was evaluated by F score, precision, recall, and compared to binary support vector machine (SVM) ensembles on 3 testing data sets (type/severity: n_benchmark = 286/116, n_original = 444/4837, n_independent = 6000/5950).

RESULTS

A CNN with 6 layers was the most effective architecture, outperforming SVMs with better generalizability to identify incidents by type and severity. The CNN achieved high F scores (> 85%) across all test data sets when identifying common incident types including falls, medications, pressure injury, and aggression. When identifying common severity levels (medium/low), CNN outperformed SVMs, improving F scores by 11.9%-45.1% across all 3 test data sets.

DISCUSSION

Automated identification of incident reports using machine learning is challenging because of a lack of large labelled training data sets and the unbalanced distribution of incident classes. The standard classification strategy is to build multiple binary classifiers and pool their predictions. CNNs can extract hierarchical features and assist in addressing class imbalance, which may explain their success in identifying incident report types.

CONCLUSION

A CNN with word embedding was effective in identifying incidents by type and severity, providing better generalizability than SVMs.

"Incident Teaching (IT)" Lecture Series - Incorporating Education Surrounding Clinical Incidents and Complaints into Foundation Year 1 (FY1) Doctors' Induction

Patient safety incidents are any unintended or unexpected incidents which potentially could, or did, lead to harm to patients. Incident reports are crucial to improve patients' care and to identify further actions needed to prevent harm. A common view among the FY1 doctors in our local NHS Trust involved a fearful opinion surrounding being involved in clinical incidents. Significant anxiety in those situations prompted the need for a focus on the topic of "clinical incidents" during their induction to the Trust in two consecutive years of 2018 and 2019. A near-peer lecture series was delivered to new FY1 with qualitative pre- and post-lecture series feedbacks. Results from lecture series from two consecutive years showed all FY1 doctors agreed or strongly agreed that they had a good understanding of incidents following the lecture. Compared with their pre-course feedback, there was an increase of 6-fold (2018) and 8-fold (2019) in those that strongly agreed. Post-course, more than 90% of doctors reported that they would feel comfortable sharing with colleagues their involvement in an incident. In a growing culture of blame and litigation, it is important to address the harm associated with a blame-based culture. The process of investigating an incident has the potential to expose the areas of deficiency relating to an individual. Reducing stigma associated with incidents could theoretically reduce the second victim phenomenon. An open culture to incident reporting is a fundamental part of medical education and quality improvement. Encouraging this attitude amongst medical professionals and creating a supporting environment surrounding sharing of experiences will help to form a generation of doctors that see incident reporting in a positive light. Our model of lecture series could be utilised in other UK Foundation Programmes with the aim of enriching the FY1s' induction period.

Composition and risk assessment of perioperative patient safety incidents reported by anesthesiologists from 2009 to 2019: a single-center retrospective cohort study

Background

Patient safety incident (PSI) reporting has been an important means of improving patient safety and enhancing organizational quality control. Reports of anesthesia-related incidents are of great value for analysis to improve perioperative patient safety. However, the utilization of incident data is far from sufficient, especially in developing countries such as China.

Methods

All PSIs reported by anesthesiologists in a Chinese academic hospital between September 2009 and August 2019 were collected from the incident reporting system. We reviewed the freeform text reports, supplemented with information from the patient medical record system. Composition analysis and risk assessment were performed.

Results

In total, 847 PSIs were voluntarily reported by anesthesiologists during the study period among 452,974 anesthetic procedures, with a reported incidence of 0.17%. Patients with a worse ASA physical status were more likely to be involved in a PSI. The most common type of incident was related to the airway (N = 208, 27%), followed by the heart, brain and vascular system (N = 99, 13%) and pharmacological incidents (N = 79, 10%). Those preventable incidents with extreme or high risk were identified through risk assessment to serve as a reference for the implementation of more standard operating procedures by the department.

Conclusions

This study describes the characteristics of 847 PSIs voluntarily reported by anesthesiologists within eleven years in a Chinese academic hospital. Airway incidents constitute the majority of incidents reported by anesthesiologists. Underreporting is common in China, and the importance of summarizing and utilizing anesthesia incident data should be scrutinized.

Adverse events related to thoracentesis and chest tube insertion: evaluation of the national collection of subject safety incidents in Japan

PURPOSE

Thoracentesis and chest tube insertion are procedures commonly performed in routine clinical practice and are considered mandatory skills for all physicians. Adverse events secondary to these procedures have been widely reported; however, epidemiology data concerning life-threatening events associated with these procedures are lacking.

METHODS

We retrospectively analyzed data from the Japan Council for Quality Health Care open database regarding subject safety incidents involving thoracentesis and chest tube insertion. The adverse events extracted from the database included only events associated with thoracentesis and chest tube insertion reported between January 2010 and April 2020.

RESULTS

We identified 137 adverse events due to thoracentesis or chest tube insertion. Our analysis also revealed at least 15 fatal adverse events and 17 cases of left/right misalignment. Not only resident doctors but also physicians with 10 years or more of clinical experience had been mentioned in these reports. The most common complications due to adverse events were lung injury (55%), thoracic vascular injury (21%), and liver injury (10%). Surgical treatment was required for 43 (31%) of the 137 cases, and the mortality risk was significantly higher for thoracic vascular injury than for other complications (p = 0.02).

CONCLUSION

We identified at least 15 fatal adverse events and 17 cases of left/right misalignment over a 10-year period in the Japan Council for Quality Health Care open database. Our findings also suggest that care should be taken to avoid thoracic vascular injury during chest tube insertion and that immediate intervention is required should such an injury occur.

A Likert-Type scale for evaluating the “bottom line” of patient safety

The formally reported number of adverse events may be open to ambivalent interpretation – actual higher prevalence of adverse events versus a patient safety culture supporting reporting and learning. Many methods appearing in the literature that are not based on reporting systems struggle for adequately assess the precise level of prevalence of adverse events. Confronting this challenge in patient safety research, we suggest evaluating the perceived state of “almost no adverse events” in the ward, by using a short Likert- type scale we developed for this purpose. Some evidence for its reliability and validity are presented using two samples (99 head nurses, and 383 nurses). As was expected, leadership had a significant direct effect on the measured state of “almost no adverse events” as well as an indirect effect mediated successively by psychological safety, and safety behavior.

Development and Validation of a Deep Learning Model for Detection of Allergic Reactions Using Safety Event Reports Across Hospitals

IMPORTANCE

Although critical to patient safety, health care-related allergic reactions are challenging to identify and monitor.

OBJECTIVE

To develop a deep learning model to identify allergic reactions in the free-text narrative of hospital safety reports and evaluate its generalizability, efficiency, productivity, and interpretability.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

This cross-sectional study analyzed hospital safety reports filed between May 2004 and January 2019 at Brigham and Women's Hospital and between April 2006 and June 2018 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Training and validating a deep learning model involved extracting safety reports using 101 expert-curated keywords from Massachusetts General Hospital (data set I). The model was then evaluated on 3 data sets: reports without keywords (data set II), reports from a different time frame (data set III), and reports from a different hospital (Brigham and Women's Hospital; data set IV). Statistical analyses were performed between March 1, 2019, and July 18, 2020.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve and area under the precision-recall curve were used on data set I. The precision at top-k was used on data sets II to IV.

RESULTS

A total of 299 028 safety reports with 172 854 patients were included. Of these patients, 86 544 were women (50.1%) and the median (interquartile range [IQR]) age was 59.7 (43.8-71.6) years. The deep learning model achieved an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.979 (95% CI, 0.973-0.985) and an area under the precision-recall curve of 0.809 (95% CI, 0.773-0.845). The model achieved precisions at the top 100 model-identified cases of 0.930 in data set II, 0.960 in data set III, and 0.990 in data set IV. Compared with the keyword-search approach, the deep learning model reduced the number of cases for manual review by 63.8% and identified 24.2% more cases of confirmed allergic reactions. The model highlighted important words (eg, rash, hives, and Benadryl) in prediction and extended the list of expert-curated keywords through an attention layer.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

This study showed that a deep learning model can accurately and efficiently identify allergic reactions using free-text narratives written by a variety of health care professionals. This model could be used to improve allergy care, potentially enabling real-time event surveillance and guidance for medical errors and system improvement.

A prospective six-month audit of airway incidents during anaesthesia in twelve tertiary level hospitals across Australia and New Zealand

This audit of airway incidents was conducted over six months in 12 tertiary level hospitals across Australia and New Zealand. During that time, 131,233 patients had airway management and 111 reports were submitted (incidence 0.08%). The airway incidents included a combination of difficult airway management (83), oxygen desaturation (58), aspiration (19), regurgitation (14), laryngospasm (16), airway bleeding (10), bronchospasm (5) and dental injury (4), which gave a total of 209 events in 111 reports. Most incidents occurred during general anaesthesia (GA; 83.8%) and normal working hours (81.1%). Forty-three percent were associated with head and neck surgery and 12.6% with upper abdominal procedures. Of these patients, 52% required further medical treatment or additional procedures and 16.2% required unplanned admission to an intensive care unit or a high dependency unit. A total of 31.5% of patients suffered from temporary harm and 1.8% from permanent harm. There was one death. The factors associated with a high relative risk (RR) of an airway incident included American Society of Anesthesiologists Physical Status (ASA PS) (ASA PS 2 versus 1, RR 1.75; ASA PS 3 versus 1, RR 3.56; ASA PS 4 versus 1, RR 6.1), and emergency surgery (RR 2.16 compared with elective). Sedation and monitored anaesthesia care were associated with lower RRs (RR 0.49 and RR 0.73 versus GA, respectively). Inadequate airway assessment, poor judgement and poor planning appeared to be contributors to these events. Future teaching and research should focus on these areas to further improve airway management and patient safety.

A survey of anesthetists’ experience and perspectives of perioperative anaphylaxis at an Australian tertiary hospital

Background : Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening emergency that requires prompt recognition and institution of life-saving therapy. Perioperative Anaphylaxis Management Guidelines have been developed by the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists and Australian and New Zealand Anaesthetic Allergy Group and anesthetic societies worldwide to facilitate diagnosis and management of this rare, but severe complication. Objectives : To perform a cross-sectional survey of the anesthetists’ experience of perioperative anaphylaxis at a single centre and its effect on their practice. Design : Survey questionnaire constructed in Survey Monkey® and sent via e-mail link to all anesthetists. This questionnaire included qualitative and quantitative questions. Setting : Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, a tertiary referral hospital in Queensland. Methods : Anesthetic specialists and provisional fellows at The Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital were surveyed using an online platform regarding their experiences of managing anaphylaxis, referral for testing, formal incident reporting and knowledge of existing departmental protocol. We also asked if their experience of anaphylaxis modified their clinical practice. Results : Forty-five out of 102 (44%) of the specialists and provisional fellows surveyed responded. Of these, 17 (38%) had been involved as primary anesthetist and 20 (44.5%) indirectly in at least one suspected case of perioperative anaphylaxis in the past 12-months. Most anesthetists were aware of the resources available in this crisis and appropriate referral for testing had occurred. There was poor local and national reporting of anaphylaxis as a critical incident. Conclusion : A large percentage of the anesthetists surveyed had seen a case of perioperative anaphylaxis in the past year. Managing this life-threatening event has led to practice change for many anesthetists. There is a requirement for further education around incident reporting.

Voluntarily reported prescribing, monitoring and medication transfer errors in intensive care units in The Netherlands

Background Medication errors occur frequently in intensive care units (ICU). Voluntarily reported medication errors form an easily available source of information. Objective This study aimed to characterize prescribing, monitoring and medication transfer errors that were voluntarily reported in the ICU, in order to reveal medication safety issues. Setting This retrospective data analysis study included reports of medication errors from eleven Dutch ICU's from January 2016 to December 2017. Method We used data extractions from the incident reporting systems of the participating ICU's. The reports were transferred into one database and categorized into type of error, cause, medication (groups), and patient harm. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the proportion of medication errors and the distribution of subcategories. Based on the analysis, ICU medication safety issues were revealed. Main outcome measure The main outcome measure was the proportion of prescribing, monitoring and medication transfer error reports. Results Prescribing errors were reported most frequently (n = 233, 33%), followed by medication transfer errors (n = 85, 12%) and monitoring errors (n = 27, 4%). Other findings were: medication transfer errors frequently caused serious harm, especially the omission of home medication involving the central nervous system and proton pump inhibitors; omissions and dosing errors occurred most frequently; protocol problems caused a quarter of the medication errors; and medications needing blood level monitoring (e.g. tacrolimus, vancomycin, heparin and insulin) were frequently involved. Conclusion This analysis of voluntarily reported prescribing, monitoring and medication transfer errors warrants several improvement measures in these processes, which may help to increase medication safety in the ICU.

Patient safety and the role of the Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology: A European survey

BACKGROUND

The Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety was launched in 2010 by the European Society of Anaesthesiology and the European Board of Anaesthesiology. It is not clear how widely its vision and standards have been adopted.

OBJECTIVE

To explore the role of the Helsinki Declaration in promoting and maintaining patient safety in European anaesthesiology.

DESIGN

Online survey.

SETTING

A total of 38 countries within Europe.

PARTICIPANTS

Members of the European Society of Anaesthesiology who responded to an invitation to take part by electronic mail.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Responses from a 16-item online survey to explore each member anaesthesiologist's understanding of the Declaration and compliance with its standards.

RESULTS

We received 1589 responses (33.4% response rate), with members from all countries responding. The median [IQR] response rate of members was 20.5% [11.7 to 37.0] per country. There were many commonalities across Europe. There were very high levels of use of monitoring (pulse oximetry: 99.6%, blood pressure: 99.4%; ECG: 98.1% and capnography: 96.0%). Protocols and guidelines were also widely used, with those for pre-operative assessment, and difficult and failed intubation being particularly popular (mentioned by 93.4% and 88.9% of respondents, respectively). There was evidence of widespread use of the WHO Safe Surgery checklist, with only 93 respondents (6.0%) suggesting that they never used it. Annual reports of measures taken to improve patient safety, and of morbidity and mortality, were produced in the hospitals of 588 (37.3%) and 876 (55.7%) respondents, respectively. Around three-quarters of respondents, 1216, (78.7%) stated that their hospital used a critical incident reporting system. Respondents suggested that measures to promote implementation of the Declaration, such as a formal set of checklist items for day-to-day practice, publicity, translation and simulation training, would currently be more important than possible changes to its content.

CONCLUSION

Many patient safety practices encouraged by the Declaration are well embedded in many European countries. The data have highlighted areas where there is still room for improvement.

Reporting incidents involving the use of advanced medical technologies by nurses in home care: a cross-sectional survey and an analysis of registration data

BACKGROUND

Advanced medical technologies (AMTs), such as respiratory support or suction devices, are increasingly used in home settings and incidents may well result in patient harm. Information about risks and incidents can contribute to improved patient safety, provided that those are reported and analysed systematically.

OBJECTIVES

To identify the frequency of incidents when using AMTs in home settings, the effects on patient outcomes and the actions taken by nurses following identification of incidents.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study of 209 home care nurses in the Netherlands working with infusion therapy, parenteral nutrition or morphine pumps, combining data from a questionnaire and registration forms covering more than 13 000 patient contacts. Descriptive statistics were used.

RESULTS

We identified 140 incidents (57 adverse events; 83 near misses). The frequencies in relation to the number of patient contacts were 2.7% for infusion therapy, 1.3% for parenteral nutrition and 2.6% for morphine pumps. The main causes were identified as related to the product (43.6%), the organisation of care (27.9%), the nurse as a user (15.7%) and the environment (12.9%). 40% of all adverse events resulted in mild to severe harm to the patient. Incidents had been discussed in the team (70.7%), with the patient/informal caregiver(s) (50%), or other actions had been taken (40.5%). 15.5% of incidents had been formally reported according to the organisation's protocol.

CONCLUSIONS

Most incidents are attributed to product failures. Although such events predominantly cause no harm, a significant proportion of patients do suffer some degree of harm. There is considerable underreporting of incidents with AMTs in home care. This study has identified a discrepancy in quality circles: learning takes place at the team level rather than at the organisational level.

Critical Incidents during Anesthesia and Early Post-Anesthetic Period: A Descriptive Cross-sectional Study

INTRODUCTION

Critical incidents related to peri-operative anesthesia carry a risk of unwanted patient outcomes. Studying those helps detect problems, which is crucial in minimizing their recurrence. We aimed to identify the frequency of peri-anesthetic critical incidents.

METHODS

This is a hospital-based descriptive cross-sectional study of voluntarily reported incidents, which occurred during anesthesia or following 24 hours among patients subjected to non-cardiac surgery within the calendar year 2019. Patient characteristics, anesthesia, and surgery types, category, context, and outcome of incidents were recorded in an indigenously designed form. Incidents were assigned to attributable (patient, anesthesia or surgery) factor, and were analyzed for the system,equipment or human error contribution.

RESULTS

Altogether 464 reports were studied, which consisted of 524 incidents. Cardiovascular category comprised of 345 (65.8%) incidents. Incidents occurred in 433 (93%) otherwise healthy patients and during 258 (55.6%) spinal anesthetics. Obstetric surgery was involved in 179 (38.6%) incidents. Elective surgery and anesthesia maintenance phase included the context in 293 (63%)and 378 (72%) incidents respectively. Majority incidents 364 (69.5%) were anesthesia-attributable, with system and human error contribution in 196 (53.8%) and 152 (41.7%) cases respectively. All recovered fully except for 25 cases of mortality, which were mostly associated with patient factors, surgical urgency, and general anesthesia.

CONCLUSIONS

Critical incidents occur even in low-risk patients during anesthesia delivery. Patient factors and emergency surgery contribute to the most serious incidents.

[Factors of reporting adverse events in a Tunisian hospital.]

INTRODUCTION

We wish to integrate an adverse events reporting system in a Tunisian University Hospital. However, before the implantation of this system, it is important to identify the factors that may influence the reporting, so it is primordial to conduct a study which aims to determine influencing factors of adverse events reporting according to the perception of health care professionals.

METHOD

A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted between July and September 2014, using a questionnaire which was developed in the light of Reason’s works on safety culture (1990; 1997), and the Pffeifer, Manser and Wahner (2010) model of influencing factors of adverse events reporting. This questionnaire was self-administered to 46 physicians, 21 health technicians, 65 nurses and 18 practical nurses working in a Tunisian Hospital. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS.

RESULTS

The main obstacles identified were: lack of staff training (78.7%) and lack of precision on the types of events reported (76.7%). However, the three main facilitators are the establishment of a safety culture (88%), the commitment of decision makers in the safety culture (81.3%) and the absence of punishment (78, 7%).

CONCLUSION

A policy and managerial consideration of the main factors influencing reporting of adverse events, as well as suggestions from health professionals, is necessary to ensure a good adoption of the reporting system by healthcare institutions in Tunisia.

Critical care transfer in an English critical care network: Analysis of 1124 transfers delivered by an ad-hoc system

Background

Critical care transfers between hospitals are time critical high-risk episodes for unstable patients who often require urgent lifesaving intervention. This study aimed to establish the scale, nature and safety of current transfer practice in the South West Critical Care Network (SWCCN) in England.

Methods

The SWCCN database contains prospectively collected data in accordance with national guidelines. It was interrogated for all adult (>15 years of age) patients from January 2012 to November 2017.

Results

A total of 1124 inter-hospital transfers were recorded, with the majority (935, 83.2%) made for specialist treatment. The transferring team included a doctor in 998 (88.8%) and nurse in 935 (93.7%) transfers. In 204 (18.1%) transfers, delays occurred, with the commonest cause being availability of transport. Critical incidents occurred in 77 (6.9%).

Conclusions

This is the first published data on the transfer activity of a UK adult critical care network. It demonstrates that current ad-hoc provision is not meeting the longstanding expectations of national guidelines in terms of training, clinical experience and timeliness. The authors hope that this study may inform national conversation regarding the development of National Health Service commissioned inter-hospital transfer services for adult patients in England.

The importance of using reflective practice when working with refugees, asylum seekers and survivors of torture within IAPT

There is a very high prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) within refugee populations and survivors of torture. Refugees, asylum seekers and survivors of torture who access IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) can present with unique clinical challenges for cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) therapists. The use of reflective practice can be beneficial particularly when there is added complexity in the client's clinical presentation. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of how reflective practice can improve clinical work with this patient group and to identify some of the challenges that refugees, asylum seekers and survivors of torture may present with during therapy. The paper sets out how the use of the critical incident analysis model and clinical supervision can assist to develop reflective practice skills and improve the clinical practice of IAPT CBT therapists who work with diverse populations.

Inter-rater reliability of medication error classification in a voluntary patient safety incident reporting system HaiPro in Finland

BACKGROUND

Medication errors are common in healthcare. Medication error reporting systems can be established for learning from medication errors and risk prone processes, and their data can be analysed and used for improving medication processes in healthcare organisations. However, data reliability testing is crucial to avoid biases in data interpretation and misleading findings informing patient safety improvement.

OBJECTIVE

To assess the inter-rater reliability of medication error classifications in a voluntary patient safety incident reporting system (HaiPro) widely used in Finland, and to explore reported medication errors and their contributing factors.

METHOD

The data consisted of medication errors (n = 32 592), including near misses, reported by 36 Finnish healthcare organisations in 2007-2009. The reliability of the original classifications was tested by an independent researcher reclassifying a random sample of errors (1%, n = 288) based on narratives. The inter-rater reliability of agreement (κ) of the classifications was calculated to describe the degree of conformity between the researcher and the original data classifiers. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the medication errors.

RESULTS

The inter-rater reliability between the researcher and the original data classifiers was acceptable (κ ≥ 0.41) in 11 of 42 (26%) medication error classes. Thus, these errors could be pooled from different healthcare units for the exploration of medication errors at the level of all reporting organisations. Contributing factors were identified in 48% (n = 137) of the medication error narratives in the random sample (n = 288). The most commonly reported errors were dispensing errors (34%, n = 10 906), administration errors 25% (n = 7972), and documentation errors 17% (n = 5641).

CONCLUSIONS

The data classified by different classifiers can be pooled for some of the medication error classes. Consistency of the classification and the quality of narratives need improvement, as well as reporting and classification of contributing factors to provide high quality information on medication errors.

Pierre M, Weigand MA, Lichtenstern C. Applying the human factors analysis and classification system to critical incident reports in anaesthesiology

BACKGROUND

The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) was developed as a practical taxonomy to investigate and analyse the human contribution to accidents and incidents. Based on Reason's "Swiss Cheese Model", it considers individual, environmental, leadership and organizational contributing factors in four hierarchical levels. The aim of this study was to assess the applicability of a modified HFACS taxonomy to incident reports from a large, anonymous critical incident database with the goal of gaining valuable insight into underlying, more systemic conditions and recurring schemes that might add important information for future incident avoidance.

METHODS

We analysed 50 reports from an anonymous, anaesthesiologic, single-centre Critical Incident Reporting System using a modified HFACS-CIRS taxonomy. The 19 HFACS categories were further subdivided into a total of 117 nanocodes representing specific behaviours or preconditions for incident development.

RESULTS

On an individual level, the most frequent contributions were decision errors, attributed to inadequate risk assessment or critical-thinking failure. Communication and Coordination, mostly due to inadequate or ineffective communication, was contributory in two-thirds of reports. Half of the reports showed contributory complex interactions in a sociotechnical environment. Ratability scores were noticeably lower for categories evaluating leadership and organizational influences, necessitating careful interpretation.

CONCLUSIONS

We applied the HFACS taxonomy to the analysis of CIRS reports in anaesthesiology. This constitutes a structured approach that, especially when applied to a large data set, might help guide future mitigation and intervention strategies to reduce critical incidents and improve patient safety. Improved, more structured reporting templates could further optimize systematic analysis.

Incident reporting behaviours following the Francis report: A cross-sectional survey

RATIONALE, AIMS, AND OBJECTIVES

Previous studies have shown a lack of engagement in the reporting process. There is limited evidence about whether attitudes and behaviours of doctors in the UK towards incident reporting have changed following the events at Mid Staffordshire National Health Service Foundation Trust and the recommendations that followed. We conducted a relatively large survey of doctors, aiming to assess whether doctors recognised incidents and reported them accordingly, along with their behaviours towards reporting and their suggestions of how incident reporting may be improved.

METHODS

A cross-sectional survey of doctors was undertaken in 11 hospitals in the north of England. The participants (n = 581) were invited to take part in an electronic questionnaire. Demographics were obtained, and engagement with the incident reporting process was assessed, including an estimate of the number of incidents which were witnessed but not actually reported. Factors which influenced reporting behaviours were recorded. Free-text comments were encouraged. A mixed method analysis of the responses was performed.

RESULTS

Doctors do not appear to be engaging with the incident reporting process-in particular, junior doctors. The main reason given for not completing forms was not having enough time (38.2% of respondents), primarily due to the length and complexity of forms. Many doctors, 43.7%, witnessed more than 5 incidents, but only 13.3% of doctors submitted more than 5 reports. Free text comments revealed 4 themes which impact upon reporting behaviours: organisational issues, form structure, a culture of blame, and a lack of feedback. Several suggestions for improvement were made.

CONCLUSIONS

Little has changed in the attitudes and behaviours of doctors. Improving incident reporting form structure to make it more user-friendly and improving feedback may engage doctors and lead to an improved safety culture. The way the medical profession reports serious and other incidents still needs to be improved.

[A structured case analysis from the Critical Incident Reporting System of the German Medical Association and the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians]

BACKGROUND

Reporting systems for near misses are necessary to improve patient safety. In Germany, different systems are publicly available on both a national and regional level or as systems related to various medical domains. In contrast with the British Registry, our reporting systems still lack systematic evaluation. Using the Open-Task-Process Model (OPT model) one case of CIRSmedical (www.cirsmedical.de) was selected for a systematic analysis.

METHOD

Case 148384 reports on a patient with a tentative diagnosis of pulmonary embolism with an oxygen saturation of 71 %. The attending physician was ordered to leave the patient to participate in the daily team meeting. After 40minutes, the nurses transferred the patient from the emergency department to the ICU. The OPT model systematically checks the properties of all tasks in a given process and matches them to requirements or solving capacities of the task.

RESULTS

The analysis manifests some structural problems: Although the case was not very difficult (high priority, but a frequent problem), the solving capacities were not adequate in order to avoid errors. Since the physician left the patient, the loyalty toward medical standards and the team error correction activity were low. The team did not intervene to prevent the doctor from leaving his patient.

CONCLUSION

The OPT model allows for the analysis of both single cases and complete data sets of CIR systems and is able to disclose structural problems of clinical management.

Morbidity and Mortality Conferences: A Mini Review and Illustrated Application in Veterinary Medicine

This mini review presents current knowledge on the role of morbidity and mortality conferences (M&MCs) as a powerful educational tool and driver to improve patient care. Although M&MCs have existed since the early twentieth century, formal evaluation of their impact on education and patient care is relatively recent. Over time, M&MCs have evolved from single discipline discussions with a tendency to focus on individual errors and assign blame, to multidisciplinary, standardized presentations incorporating error analysis techniques, and educational theory. Current evidence shows that M&MCs can provide a valuable educational experience and have the potential to generate measurable improvements in patient care.

Experiences from ten years of incident reporting in health care: a qualitative study among department managers and coordinators

Background

Incident reporting (IR) in health care has been advocated as a means to improve patient safety. The purpose of IR is to identify safety hazards and develop interventions to mitigate these hazards in order to reduce harm in health care. Using qualitative methods is a way to reveal how IR is used and perceived in health care practice. The aim of the present study was to explore the experiences of IR from two different perspectives, including heads of departments and IR coordinators, to better understand how they value the practice and their thoughts regarding future application.

Methods

Data collection was performed in Östergötland County, Sweden, where an electronic IR system was implemented in 2004, and the authorities explicitly have advocated IR from that date. A purposive sample of nine heads of departments from three hospitals were interviewed, and two focus group discussions with IR coordinators took place. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

Results

Two main themes emerged from the data: “Incident reporting has come to stay” building on the categories entitled perceived advantages, observed changes and value of the IR system, and “Remaining challenges in incident reporting” including the categories entitled need for action, encouraged learning, continuous culture improvement, IR system development and proper use of IR.

Conclusions

After 10 years, the practice of IR is widely accepted in the selected setting. IR has helped to put patient safety on the agenda, and a cultural change towards no blame has been observed. The informants suggest an increased focus on action, and further development of the tools for reporting and handling incidents.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12913-018-2876-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Critical incident analysis: Equip to avoid failure

This work is set in the context of perioperative practice in difficult airway management. It integrates a root cause analysis and fish bone technique to investigate a critical incident in temporary yet crucial equipment failure. Risk management and incident reporting is analysed alongside human factors in the operating theatre environment. Finally, recommendations for risk reduction, vigilance and checking vital airway equipment are made in anaesthetic practice.

Drug Errors and Protocol for Prevention among Anaesthetists in Nigeria

Background

Drugs are often prescribed, dispensed, and administered by the same person during anaesthesia, and this may increase the risk of drug error.

Objectives

To assess the frequency of drug administration errors by anaesthetists, the drugs commonly involved, and the effects of such errors.

Method

A questionnaire-based study was carried out among participants at an annual conference of Nigerian anaesthetists. Sixty-six of the 80 participants returned the completed questionnaire. The respondents comprised 1 nurse anaesthetist, 34 resident doctors, 3 doctors with diploma in anaesthesia, and 28 consultant anaesthetists. The collated data on drug errors, the effect of such errors on patients, and formulated protocols to prevent future occurrence were subjected to descriptive analysis using Microsoft Excel.

Result

Drug error was reported by 71.21% and witnessed by 22.72% of the respondents. Most of the drug errors occurred during general anaesthesia (90.3%) for emergency procedures (51.61%), and muscle relaxants were most commonly involved (58.06%).

Conclusion

Drug errors are common among anaesthetists in Nigeria and their incidence is greater during general anaesthesia for emergency procedures, largely as a result of ampoule swaps due to similarities in ampoule design and packaging. Guidelines on their prevention should be developed by all health institutions.

Learning From Incident Reporting? Analysis of Incidents Resulting in Patient Injuries in a Web-Based System in Swedish Health Care

OBJECTIVES

Incident reporting (IR) systems have the potential to improve patient safety if they enable learning from the reported risks and incidents. The aim of this study was to investigate incidents registered in an IR system in a Swedish county council.

METHODS

The study was conducted in the County Council of Östergötland, Sweden. Data were retrieved from the IR system, which included 4755 incidents occurring in somatic care that resulted in patient injuries from 2004 to 2012. One hundred correctly classified patient injuries were randomly sampled from 3 injury severity levels: injuries leading to deaths, permanent harm, and temporary harm. Three aspects were analyzed: handling of the incident, causes of the incident, and actions taken to prevent its recurrence.

RESULTS

Of the 300 injuries, 79% were handled in the departments where they occurred. The department head decided what actions should be taken to prevent recurrence in response to 95% of the injuries. A total of 448 causes were identified for the injuries; problems associated with procedures, routines, and guidelines were most common. Decisions taken for 80% of the injuries could be classified using the IR system documentation and root cause analysis. The most commonly pursued type of action was change of work routine or guideline.

CONCLUSIONS

The handling, causes, and actions taken to prevent recurrence were similar for injuries of different severity levels. Various forms of feedback (information, education, and dialogue) were an integral aspect of the IR system. However, this feedback was primarily intradepartmental and did not yield much organizational learning.

A nationwide investigation of radiation therapy event reporting-and-learning systems: Can standards be improved?

INTRODUCTION

Variation exists between event reporting-and-learning systems utilised in radiation therapy. Due to the impact of errors associated with this field of medicine, evidence-based and rigorous systems are imperative. The implementation of such systems facilitates the reactive enhancement of patient safety following an event. The purpose of this study was to evaluate Irish event reporting-and-learning procedures against the current literature using a developed evidence-based process map, and to propose recommendations as to how the national standard could be improved.

METHODS

Radiation Therapy Service Managers of all Irish radiation therapy institutions (n = 12) were invited to participate in an anonymous online questionnaire. Included in the questionnaire was a reporting-and-learning process map developed from evidence-based literature, which was used to assess the institution's practice through the use of vignettes. Frequency analysis of closed-ended questions and thematic analysis of open-ended questions was performed to assess the data.

RESULTS

A 91.7% response rate was achieved. The following areas were found to have the most variation with the evidence-based process map: event classification, external reporting, and dissemination of lessons-learned to a wider audience. Recommendations to standardise practice were made.

CONCLUSION

Opportunities for improvement exist within event reporting-and-learning systems of Irish radiation therapy institutions and recommendations have been made on these. These findings can provide learning for other countries with similar reporting systems.

US Internal Medicine Program Director Perceptions of Alignment of Graduate Medical Education and Institutional Resources for Engaging Residents in Quality and Safety

Alignment between institutions and graduate medical education (GME) regarding quality and safety initiatives (QI) has not been measured. The objective was to determine US internal medicine residency program directors’ (IM PDs) perceived resourcing for QI and alignment between GME and their institutions. A national survey of IM PDs was conducted in the Fall of 2013. Multivariable linear regression was used to test association between a novel Integration Score (IS) measuring alignment between GME and the institution via PD perceptions. The response rate was 72.6% (265/365). According to PDs, residents were highly engaged in QI (82%), but adequate funding (14%) and support personnel (37% to 61%) were lower. Higher IS correlated to reports of funding for QI (76.3% vs 54.5%, P = .012), QI personnel (67.3% vs 41.1%, P < .001), research experts (70.5% vs 50.0%, P < .001), and computer experts (69.0% vs 45.8%, P < .001) for QI assistance. Apparent mismatch between GME and institutional resources exists, and the IS may be useful in measuring GME–institutional leadership alignment in QI.

Reporting of Perioperative Adverse Events by Pediatric Anesthesiologists at a Tertiary Children's Hospital: Targeted Interventions to Increase the Rate of Reporting

BACKGROUND

Incident reporting systems (IRSs) are important patient safety tools for identifying risks and opportunities for improvement. A major IRS limitation is underreporting of incidents. Perioperative anesthesia IRSs have been established at multiple pediatric institutions and a national pediatric anesthesia IRS for perioperative serious adverse events (SAEs) is maintained by Wake Up Safe (WUS), a patient safety organization dedicated to pediatric anesthesia quality improvement. A confidential, electronic, perioperative IRS was instituted at our tertiary children's hospital, which is a WUS member. The primary study aim was to increase the rate of incident reporting by anesthesiologists at our institution through a series of interventions. The secondary aim was to characterize our reporting behavior relative to national practice by referencing SAE data from WUS.

METHODS

Perioperative adverse events reported over a 71-month period (November 2010 to September 2016) were categorized and the monthly reporting rates determined. Effects of 6 interventions targeted to increase the reporting rate were analyzed using control charts. Intervention 5 involved interviewing pediatric anesthesiologists to ascertain incident reporting barriers and motivators. A key driver diagram was developed and used to guide an improvement initiative. Incidents that fulfilled WUS criteria for SAEs were identified and categorized. SAE reporting rates over a 27-month period for 12 WUS member institutions were determined.

RESULTS

2689 perioperative adverse events were noted in 1980 of 72,384 anesthetics. Mean monthly adverse event case rate was 273 (95% confidence interval, 250-297) per 10,000 anesthetics. A subgroup involving 54,469 cases had 529 SAEs in 440 anesthetics; a mean monthly SAE case rate of 80 (95% confidence interval, 69-91) per 10,000 anesthetics. Cardiac, respiratory, and airway events predominated. Relative to WUS peer members, our institution is a high-reporting outlier. The rate of incident reporting per 10,000 anesthetics was sustainably increased from 149 ± 35 to 387 ± 73 (mean ± SD) after implementing mandatory IRS data entry and Intervention 5 quality improvement initiative. Barriers to reporting included concern for punitive repercussions, feelings of incompetence, poor education about what constitutes an event, lack of feedback, and the perception that reporting had no value. These were addressed by IRS education, cultivation of a culture of safety where reporting is encouraged, reporter feedback, and better inclusion of anesthesiologists in patient safety work.

CONCLUSIONS

Electronic mandatory IRS data entry and an initiative to understand and address reporting barriers and motivators were associated with sustained increases in the adverse event reporting rate. These strategies to minimize underreporting enhance IRS value for learning and may be generalizable.

Wrong-patient incidents during medication administrations

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

To describe the factors pertaining to medication being administered to the wrong patient and to describe how patient identification is mentioned in wrong-patient incident reports.

BACKGROUND

Although patient identification has been given high priority to improve patient safety, patient misidentifications occur, and wrong-patient incidents are common.

DESIGN

A descriptive content analysis.

METHODS

Incident reports related to medication administration (n = 1,012) were collected from two hospitals in Finland between 1 January 2013-31 December 2014. Of those, only incidents involving wrong-patient medication administration (n = 103) were included in this study.

RESULTS

Wrong-patient incidents occurred due for many reasons, including nurse-related factors (such as tiredness, a lack of skills or negligence) but also system-related factors (such as rushing or heavy workloads). In 77% (n = 79) of wrong-patient incident reports, the process of identifying of the patient was not described at all.

CONCLUSIONS

There is need to pay more attention to and increase training in correct identification processes to prevent wrong-patient incidents, and it is important to adjust system factors to support nurses.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Active patient identification procedures, double-checking and verification at each stage of the medication process should be implemented. More attention should also be paid to organisational factors, such as division of work, rushing and workload, as well as to correct communication. The active participation of nurses in handling incidents could increase risk awareness and facilitate useful protection actions.

Ontology-based specification, identification and analysis of perioperative risks

BACKGROUND

Medical personnel in hospitals often works under great physical and mental strain. In medical decision-making, errors can never be completely ruled out. Several studies have shown that between 50 and 60% of adverse events could have been avoided through better organization, more attention or more effective security procedures. Critical situations especially arise during interdisciplinary collaboration and the use of complex medical technology, for example during surgical interventions and in perioperative settings (the period of time before, during and after surgical intervention).

METHODS

In this paper, we present an ontology and an ontology-based software system, which can identify risks across medical processes and supports the avoidance of errors in particular in the perioperative setting. We developed a practicable definition of the risk notion, which is easily understandable by the medical staff and is usable for the software tools. Based on this definition, we developed a Risk Identification Ontology (RIO) and used it for the specification and the identification of perioperative risks.

RESULTS

An agent system was developed, which gathers risk-relevant data during the whole perioperative treatment process from various sources and provides it for risk identification and analysis in a centralized fashion. The results of such an analysis are provided to the medical personnel in form of context-sensitive hints and alerts. For the identification of the ontologically specified risks, we developed an ontology-based software module, called Ontology-based Risk Detector (OntoRiDe).

CONCLUSIONS

About 20 risks relating to cochlear implantation (CI) have already been implemented. Comprehensive testing has indicated the correctness of the data acquisition, risk identification and analysis components, as well as the web-based visualization of results.

Enhancing Patient Safety Event Reporting. A Systematic Review of System Design Features

OBJECTIVES

Electronic patient safety event reporting (e-reporting) is an effective mechanism to learn from errors and enhance patient safety. Unfortunately, the value of e-reporting system (a software or web server based platform) in patient safety research is greatly overshadowed by low quality reporting. This paper aims at revealing the current status of system features, detecting potential gaps in system design, and accordingly proposing suggestions for future design and implementation of the system.

METHODS

Three literature databases were searched for publications that contain informative descriptions of e-reporting systems. In addition, both online publicly accessible reporting forms and systems were investigated.

RESULTS

48 systems were identified and reviewed. 11 system design features and their frequencies of occurrence (Top 5: widgets (41), anonymity or confidentiality (29), hierarchy (20), validator (17), review notification (15)) were identified and summarized into a system hierarchical model.

CONCLUSIONS

The model indicated the current e-reporting systems are at an immature stage in their development, and discussed their future development direction toward efficient and effective systems to improve patient safety.

Awareness during General Anaesthesia in the First 4,000 Incidents Reported to webairs

The aim of this study was to analyse the incidents related to awareness during general anaesthesia in the first 4,000 cases reported to webAIRS—an anaesthetic incident reporting system established in Australia and New Zealand in 2009. Included incidents were those in which the reporter selected “neurological” as the main category and “awareness/dreaming/ nightmares” as a subcategory, those where the narrative report included the word “awareness” and those identified by the authors as possibly relevant to awareness. Sixty-one awareness-related incidents were analysed: 16 were classified as “awareness”, 31 were classified as “no awareness but increased risk of awareness” and 14 were classified as “no awareness and no increased risk of awareness”. Among 47 incidents in the former two categories, 42 (89%) were associated with low anaesthetic delivery and 24 (51%) were associated with signs of intraoperative wakefulness. Memory of intraoperative events caused significant ongoing distress for five of the 16 awareness patients. Patients continue to be put at risk of awareness by a range of well-described errors (such as syringe swaps) but also by some new errors related to recently introduced anaesthetic equipment, such as electronic anaesthesia workstations.

Using multiclass classification to automate the identification of patient safety incident reports by type and severity

BACKGROUND

Approximately 10% of admissions to acute-care hospitals are associated with an adverse event. Analysis of incident reports helps to understand how and why incidents occur and can inform policy and practice for safer care. Unfortunately our capacity to monitor and respond to incident reports in a timely manner is limited by the sheer volumes of data collected. In this study, we aim to evaluate the feasibility of using multiclass classification to automate the identification of patient safety incidents in hospitals.

METHODS

Text based classifiers were applied to identify 10 incident types and 4 severity levels. Using the one-versus-one (OvsO) and one-versus-all (OvsA) ensemble strategies, we evaluated regularized logistic regression, linear support vector machine (SVM) and SVM with a radial-basis function (RBF) kernel. Classifiers were trained and tested with "balanced" datasets (n_ _Type  = 2860, n_ _{SeverityLevel}  = 1160) from a state-wide incident reporting system. Testing was also undertaken with imbalanced "stratified" datasets (n_ _Type  = 6000, n_ _{SeverityLevel} =5950) from the state-wide system and an independent hospital reporting system. Classifier performance was evaluated using a confusion matrix, as well as F-score, precision and recall.

RESULTS

The most effective combination was a OvsO ensemble of binary SVM RBF classifiers with binary count feature extraction. For incident type, classifiers performed well on balanced and stratified datasets (F-score: 78.3, 73.9%), but were worse on independent datasets (68.5%). Reports about falls, medications, pressure injury, aggression and blood products were identified with high recall and precision. "Documentation" was the hardest type to identify. For severity level, F-score for severity assessment code (SAC) 1 (extreme risk) was 87.3 and 64% for SAC4 (low risk) on balanced data. With stratified data, high recall was achieved for SAC1 (82.8-84%) but precision was poor (6.8-11.2%). High risk incidents (SAC2) were confused with medium risk incidents (SAC3).

CONCLUSIONS

Binary classifier ensembles appear to be a feasible method for identifying incidents by type and severity level. Automated identification should enable safety problems to be detected and addressed in a more timely manner. Multi-label classifiers may be necessary for reports that relate to more than one incident type.

Safety culture: the Nottingham Veterinary Safety Culture Survey (NVSCS)

Safety culture is a vital concept in human healthcare because of its influence on staff behaviours in relation to patient safety. Understanding safety culture is essential to ensure the acceptance and sustainability of changes, such as the introduction of safe surgery checklists. While widely studied and assessed in human medicine, there is no tool for its assessment in veterinary medicine. This paper therefore presents initial data on such an assessment: the Nottingham Veterinary Safety Culture Survey (NVSCS). 350 pilot surveys were distributed to practising vets and nurses. The survey was also available online. 229 surveys were returned (65 per cent response rate) and 183 completed online, resulting in 412 surveys for analysis. Four domains were identified: (1) organisational safety systems and behaviours, (2) staff perceptions of management, (3) risk perceptions and (4) teamwork and communication. Initial indications of the reliability and the validity of the final survey are presented. Although early in development, the resulting 29-item NVSCS is presented as a tool for measuring safety culture in veterinary practices with implications for benchmarking, safety culture assessment and teamwork training.

A Study on the Reporting Intention of Medical Incidents: A Nursing Perspective

Medical incidents threaten patients’ lives and health, increase medical costs, and can lead to medical disputes. A high proportion of medical incidents are not reported. The aim of this study was to explore the factors influencing nurses’ reporting of medical incidents. The cross-sectional survey design used a self-administered 47-item questionnaire to survey 835 nurses in three hospitals in Taiwan between January and December 2014. The intention among nurses to report medical incidents was high (3.86/5); nurses’ intention to report medical incidents was positively correlated ( r = .34, p < .0001) with their attitude about reporting, awareness of reporting ( r = .37, p < .0001), and support from interested parties ( r = .12, p = .001), and was negatively correlated with positive incentives ( r = -.14, p < .0001) and negative incentives ( r = .29, p < .0001). Nurses’ awareness and a supportive work environment affect nurses’ willingness to voluntarily report medical incidents; hence, they are critical considerations as Taiwan moves toward systems of mandatory reporting.

A Cross-sectional Overview of the First 4,000 Incidents Reported to webAIRS, a De-identified Web-based Anaesthesia Incident Reporting System in Australia and New Zealand

webAIRS is a web-based de-identified anaesthesia incident reporting system, which was introduced in Australia and New Zealand in September 2009. By July 2016, 4,000 incident reports had been received. The incidents covered a wide range of patient age (<28 days to >90 years), American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status, and body mass index (<18.5 to >50 kg/m2). They occurred across a wide range of anaesthesia techniques and grade of anaesthesia provider, and over a wide range of anaesthetising locations and times of day. In a high proportion the outcome was not benign; about 26% of incidents were associated with patient harm and a further 4% with death. Incidents appeared to be an ever-present risk in anaesthetic practice, with extrapolated estimates exceeding 200 per week across Australia and New Zealand. Independent of outcomes, many anaesthesia incidents were associated with increased use of health resources. The four most common main categories of incident were Respiratory/Airway, Medication, Cardiovascular, and Medical Device/Equipment. Over 50% of incidents were considered preventable. The narratives accompanying each incident provide a rich source of information, which will be analysed in subsequent reports on particular incident types. The summary data in this initial overview are a sober reminder of the prevalence and unpredictability of anaesthesia incidents, and their potential morbidity and mortality. The data justify current efforts to better prevent and manage anaesthesia incidents in Australia and New Zealand, and identify areas in which increased resources or additional initiatives may be required.

Incident Reporting Behaviours and Associated Factors among Nurses Working in Gondar University Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia

Background. A comprehensive and systematic approach to incident reporting would help learn from errors and adverse events within a healthcare facility. Objective. The aim of the study was to assess incident reporting behaviours and associated factors among nurses. Methods. An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted from April 14 to 29, 2015. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. Data were coded, entered into Epi Info 7, and exported to SPSS version 20 software for analysis. A multivariate logistic regression model was fitted and adjusted odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was used to determine the strength of association. Results. The proportion of nurses who reported incidents was 25.4%. Training on incident reporting (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) [95% CI] 2.96 [1.34-6.26]), reason to report (to help patient) (AOR [95% CI] 3.08 [1.70-5.59]), fear of administrative sanctions (AOR [95% CI] 0.27 [0.12-0.58]), fear of legal penalty (AOR [95% CI] 0.09 [0.03-0.21]), and fear of loss of prestige among colleagues (AOR [95% CI] 0.25 [0.12-0.53]) were significantly associated factors with the incident reporting behaviour of nurses. Conclusion and Recommendation. The proportion of nurses who reported incidents was very low. Establishing a system which promotes incident reporting is vital.

Developing a patient-led electronic feedback system for quality and safety within Renal PatientView

BACKGROUND

It is increasingly acknowledged that patients can provide direct feedback about the quality and safety of their care through patient reporting systems. The aim of this study was to explore the feasibility of patients, healthcare professionals and researchers working in partnership to develop a patient-led quality and safety feedback system within an existing electronic health record (EHR), known as Renal PatientView (RPV).

METHODS

Phase 1 (inception) involved focus groups (n = 9) and phase 2 (requirements) involved cognitive walkthroughs (n = 34) and 1:1 qualitative interviews (n = 34) with patients and healthcare professionals. A Joint Services Expert Panel (JSP) was convened to review the findings from phase 1 and agree the core principles and components of the system prototype. Phase 1 data were analysed using a thematic approach. Data from phase 1 were used to inform the design of the initial system prototype. Phase 2 data were analysed using the components of heuristic evaluation, resulting in a list of core principles and components for the final system prototype.

RESULTS

Phase 1 identified four main barriers and facilitators to patients feeding back on quality and safety concerns. In phase 2, the JSP agreed that the system should be based on seven core principles and components.

DISCUSSION

Stakeholders were able to work together to identify core principles and components for an electronic patient quality and safety feedback system in renal services. Tensions arose due to competing priorities, particularly around anonymity and feedback. Careful consideration should be given to the feasibility of integrating a novel element with differing priorities into an established system with existing functions and objectives.

Safe incident reporting in out-of-hours primary care: an exploratory study

OBJECTIVES

The goal of safe incident reporting (SIR) is to recognize avoidable incidents to prevent future harm. Data on the use of SIR in Belgium's out-of-hours primary care (OOHC) services are lacking. We investigated a priori attitudes of managers and GPs, and their willingness to report in OOHC services. We mapped which methods are used.

METHODS

A telephone questionnaire was conducted with the managers of all 27 OOHC centers in Flanders. It assessed the design of used reporting systems and the attitudes towards SIR. A paper survey was administered to assess GPs' attitudes in two large out-of-hours primary care centers.

RESULTS

All managers participated (N = 23). Seventy percent used some form of incident reporting system, with a large design variation. All managers thought SIR is important to improve quality and safety. Seven managers predicted that GPs would be hesitant to use SIR. In the GPs' survey (response rate 58%), 69.7% of responders had experienced an incident and 74.5% would tend to report it. 81.1% agreed that an incident has to be analyzed, discussed, and should lead to an improvement plan. The majority believed SIR could create openness about adverse events and would improve job satisfaction. One out of five feared that it would make their job more difficult, and 39% were afraid the report could be used against the reporter.

CONCLUSION

OOHC center managers and GPs show positive attitudes towards SIR. There is a large variation in the currently used methods. Future projects could focus on interventions of implementation of SIR in OOHC.